


The Turning of the Screw

by sassgardianlass (misshiss)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Barebacking, Brainwashing, Canon Divergence, Dancing, Dry Sex, M/M, PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Religious Imagery, Rimming, Sex, Swearing, Violence, but no actual dubcon, creepy hugs, no actual discussion of religion, possibly disturbing imagery, shrinkyclinks, talk of dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5032543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshiss/pseuds/sassgardianlass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Of course we know, boy, of course we do. We know everything about you. We want to help you, remember? If you want a companion so badly, why didn’t you tell me? We’ll get the boy for you, no problem. You did a good job, son. You deserve it.”</p><p>When HYDRA decides to get Steve as a toy for the Soldier, something inside of him snaps. He must overcome years of brainwashing in order to save the one good memory he still has left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kayaczek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayaczek/gifts).



> This is the culmination of all my angsty Winter Soldier headcanons. Kayaczek wanted something involving dance, but this turned out way creepier than I intended. :( I'm sorry. In case you'd like to read more about brainwashing, here ya [go](http://sassgardianlass.tumblr.com/post/131167646061/do-you-think-bucky-will-ever-get-his-memories).

Rusty metal bit the Soldier’s bare palm. The fire escape ladder swayed under his weight, creaking ominously. Rising to a crouch, he rubbed his rain-slick hands together. He’d been gone for four years, but this place had not changed at all. Anyway, in his memory he had walked these stairs a thousand times, following the footsteps he had left behind in… 1942? 1943? Sometimes his memory was a sieve, others time it was a sponge. At any rate, it was 1947 and they had deemed him ready to return to the city of his biological birth. Sending him off with a clap on the back and a rifle in his hand, they had reminded him of his calling: the millions of aimlessly bustling New Yorkers depended on him. They didn’t know it yet, but he was going to shape their century, he would be their champion, their last line of defense against chaos and darkness.

  
The Soldier saw his breath form a white cloud in front of his mouth. It was getting late and cold, and he would have to return to his designated safehouse soon, but not yet. He had a couple of minutes to spare. For the first time in years his memories weren’t just images, but texture he could feel, air he could breathe. The images were what he returned to when everything else in his mind flickered out and he felt blank, like a white canvas. This apartment was the one thing he hadn’t given up to his handlers. Nor its inhabitant. After a while, the Soldier had been only too happy to spill his guts, to give them everything, but never this. He was a little shocked at his own resilience. HYDRA only wanted what was best for him and the rest of the world. He shouldn’t have held this back.

Sometimes, when he was alone in his quarters, staring into the darkness and counting the minutes until it would be light again, he saw Steve’s hair shimmer and beckon to him. It had never been this gold or this soft in real life, but at night it was. At night it calmed the Soldier, helped him retreat back to this place. To _before_.

A lamp flickered on inside. The Soldier saw the puffy cloud of white in front of his mouth vanish. He couldn’t breathe.

Steve walked towards the rickety kitchen table with a bag of groceries over his arm. He looked different, the Soldier thought, although he couldn’t be sure, of course. Maybe Steve had always looked this way and the Soldier had merely pushed it aside so he could indulge in his fantasy more easily. Dark shadows smudged the tender skin under Steve’s eyes and he was possibly even thinner than the Soldier recalled, his bones bird-hollow. He hadn’t been taking care of himself and the Soldier felt a sudden pang of guilt in his chest. It was the first emotion he had let himself feel in a long time, but he wasn’t ready to examine it yet. Coming here had been a mistake.

He’d had his glimpse now and he knew he should leave before he was caught either by someone he knew from before or his handlers. Leading them straight towards this place would have undermined all his efforts to keep it hidden and safe from ever-prying HYDRA. Even so, he couldn’t move and his breathing was limited to what little oxygen he could draw through his nostrils.

Steve was unpacking his bag of groceries, long, slim artist’s fingers making quick work of the few items he had; a bottle of milk, three apples and a handful of potatoes. The Soldier didn’t think this made for a very nutritious meal, but he didn’t have to worry about food so he couldn’t be sure. His handlers provided him with everything he needed to stay at his ideal weight and to maintain the muscle muss he had built up following the end of his confinement. Steve had to fend for himself in a world that wasn’t kind to those who were different. Steve was all alone now and he had no one to tell him what to eat or to get out of his rain-soaked coat.

The Soldier turned to look over his shoulder, making sure he was still alone. Perhaps he could stay another minute and watch Steve prepare his food. He could afford that much, at least.

But Steve wasn’t planning on eating. He went to a corner the Soldier couldn’t see from his place on the fire escape ladder, and a moment later a jazz song crackled to life, carrying even through the window pane. The song’s ghostly fingers reached for the Soldier, beckoning him closer to watch and listen. His eyes were wide, almost young, as he watched Steve swaying in time with the music. He was clumsy, of course, the Soldier could have shown him exactly how to do this. The Soldier had been good at dancing, once upon a time, but that sort of leisure activity was not suitable for the Fist of HYDRA. Still, he felt his foot hammer out the rhythm against the rusty metal below him, willing Steve to feel it, to understand it and move accordingly. It wasn’t that hard, was it?  
His fingers itched to go around Steve’s waist and ease him into the movements. It wasn’t hard. Anyone could do it with proper instruction. The Soldier closed his eyes (just a moment, surely he had a moment) and moved, his muscles remembering exactly what they needed to do.

The music stopped.

The Soldier didn’t stay long enough to catch more than a sliver of an image; blue eyes, impossibly wide; a raised hand. Then he was gone, vanishing into the night with his heart pounding at one hundred miles an hour.

His first mistake in two years and it could have cost him everything.

-

When the Soldier returned to the safehouse his handlers were already waiting for him. Pierce, a tall man with eyes like the sky before rain, tapped his wrist watch.

“Two hours and fifty minutes. This isn’t your personal best. To the best of my knowledge, you wouldn’t have encountered any difficulties.”

Pierce never asked for mission reports. That would have left the Soldier a margin of error, a hole to weasel through and keep his extraneous activities to himself. Pierce was smart so the Soldier had to be smarter. He didn’t like lying to Pierce, though. Normally, Pierce was his favourite handler. The American sometimes let him have newspapers or chewing gum, which wasn’t technically part of his meal plan. He also didn’t insist on wiping the Soldier after every mission because he felt that it wouldn’t hurt the Soldier to have some background information on what he was doing, said that having the bigger picture would help the Soldier.  
Still, he couldn’t let Pierce know about the apartment or Steve and that’s why he told his first indirect lie in two years.

“The rain would have damaged my arm. I had to find shelter.”

It wasn’t a direct lie. The new metal arm they had given him was a wonder of modern science, but it wasn’t water-proof. Yet. Zola was working on that, but progress took time.

“Well, no matter.” Pierce waved his hand dismissively, like he was impatient to get to other matters. “I have a special mission for you. Do you remember my son?”

The Soldier wasn’t sure about that. It was entirely possible that the little blond boy he remembered was Pierce’s son, but he could’ve been a figment of the Soldier’s imagination. Somehow all of his thoughts seemed to be bleeding together to form his memories, to replace his current surroundings with ones of the past. Maybe the boy’s face was Steve’s, Steve’s as it had been before.

“Here, that’s him,” Pierce said, forcing the Soldier back to the present. Pierce handed him a photograph. The eyes were unmistakable. “I need you to take him to school in Maine. HYDRA has a special facility there.”

The Soldier hadn’t known about the facility, but it didn’t surprise him. HYDRA would have to last through the ages and they couldn’t just freeze everyone, could they? He nodded and Pierce patted his head, gently disentangling his hair. Leaning into the touch, the Soldier tried not to imagine it was Steve’s gentle hands doing this to him. That would never happen again. He would never go back and endanger both his friend and himself. He wouldn’t endanger HYDRA’s mission either. He was the Fist in the darkness, HYDRA’s sword of salvation. He would not fail.

“You like being touched, don’t you?” Pierce murmured, gently pulling the Soldier over to sit in his lap.

The Soldier stiffened, every joint and sinew in his body locking up at the unfamiliar proximity to another human being. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything like this. His last hug had been in London, a girl who’d warmed him through the night. And now it was Pierce’s calloused fingers cupping the back of his neck, rubbing soothing circles into his taut muscles. Despite his will, despite his better knowledge, the Soldier relaxed in Pierce’s arms, resting his forehead against the man’s collarbone. It had been too long. He didn’t want to do this, but he needed it. Warmth pooled in the Soldier’s stomach, spreading throughout his body until his breathing calmed and he felt a little less lonely. A noise between a sob and a sigh escaped the Soldier’s lips, but it was muffled against Pierce’s shoulder. It smelled of tobacco and soap, just like the Soldier’s father had. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to fall back in time, to become that child again. Only now HYDRA was his mother, nurturing him at her own bosom, and Pierce was his father.

“Poor boy, all alone, huh?” Pierce cooed at him like the Soldier was a crying child on his knees. Perhaps he was. “I’ve been telling them to give you a mate, but they wouldn’t listen. Said you shouldn’t have children until the time was right. But it’s not girls you like, is it? It’s the pretty blond boy you visited tonight.”

A punch in the stomach might have been kinder, but Pierce kept stroking him through it, kept holding him like an angry, struggling child kicking its legs against the injustice of the world.

“Of course we know, boy, of course we do. We know everything about you. We want to help you, remember? If you want a companion so badly, why didn’t you tell me? We’ll get the boy for you, no problem. You did a good job, son. You deserve it.”

The Soldier went cold inside, unresponsive even to the touch his every nerve was singing out for. He had been so naïve, so naïve to think that HYDRA would not find out about Steve and the apartment. Maybe he hadn’t told her, his new mother, with his lips and words, but he had betrayed his memory anyway. He’d never stood a chance.

“Such a good boy,” Pierce murmured against the Soldier’s hair, rocking him back and forth.

And the Soldier knew then. He knew he was going to have Steve, whether he wanted him or not. Bile bit the back of his throat, but he remained silent even as his innards turned to burning, roaring agony until he felt nothing, nothing, nothing inside.


	2. Chapter 2

After his revelation, Pierce decided it was time to wipe the Soldier. “We wouldn’t want you to be too focused on your prize, now would we?” he asked, patting the Soldier’s shoulder. He hated himself for leaning into the touch like a needy kitten, but his body wouldn’t be stopped. He was a plant coming alive under the sun of Pierce’s touch. “We have some things for you to take care of first. Senator Ermentrout is starting to get a little… uppity. Unfortunately, we still need him. But you can always pay his wife a little visit, can’t you?”

The Soldier didn’t know who Senator Ermentrout was, but he was pretty sure his visit would make a mess of the man’s home. And his wife. Mostly, he just had to kill people, which was easy enough once you had figured out how to do it and once you’d learned how to do it in cold blood. It had been different during the war. The Soldier hadn’t exactly hated the men he’d killed, but there had been heat, lust, arousal. Sometimes he’d come in his pants when his bullet had found his enemy’s flesh. It happened to everyone. It was one of the things you never mentioned to anyone else, but everyone knew about.

Things were more difficult when there was no immediate threat to your own life. The Soldier had learned, though. He knew fifty names for murder and he could perform every single one of them.

No, killing was not a problem. It came to the Soldier as easily as nurturing came to mothers. It was the torture he still wasn’t very fond of. He could do it no problem, but it was never a clean job and it was never easy. Somehow his emotions must have shown on his face because Pierce’s grip in his hair tightened suddenly – not enough to hurt (never enough to hurt because Mother HYDRA was gentle, good and just, only wanted what was best for her children, always good, so good and so right), but definitely demanding his attention. He didn’t look Pierce in the eye, but he tilted his head to the side, indicating that he was listening.

“I know it’s not your favourite activity, but it has to be done. For the good of HYDRA. You’ll be a good boy and do this for us, won’t you?” Pierce’s voice was like liquid poison, pouring in through all of the Soldier’s cracks, burning through his defenses and leaving him open and vulnerable like a raw nerve.

Of course he wanted to be good. If being good meant that he could be touched, that he could feel another human being’s skin against his own, then yes, yes, he could torture Mrs Ermentrout. He nodded in confirmation, his shaggy hair falling across his face, and Pierce patted the Soldier’s rump as he shoved him off his lap, like the Soldier was a skittish race horse prancing before its most important run of the season. “I knew you would. Always such a good, obedient boy, aren’t you? Good boys get rewarded. You’ll have a pet of your very own once this is done. But first we gotta wipe you, don’t we? We wouldn’t want you to screw up this mission just because you get… overly excited.”  
The Soldier was led to one of the many medical rooms in the HYDRA HQ where a bunch of tired-looking technicians awaited him. They informed Pierce of the usual dangers related to electroshock therapy, which he waved away with a flick of his wrist, like he always did. It was a well-practiced dance which none of them wanted to perform, but which was necessary anyway. Damaging the Asset (that was what they called the Soldier when they wanted more research money to fine tune him) would have meant considerable losses. Unacceptable losses after all the resources and time that had been invested in him. The Soldier didn’t listen. As long as he could still think, he tried keeping Steve in his mind, Steve, Steve, Steve. He had to remember Steve and that HYDRA was going to try and kidnap him for the Soldier. He had to remember that. But of course he wouldn’t.

And then he stopped thinking altogether.

-

Mrs Ermentrout was barely out of high school. The senator had probably married her for her pretty face and shapely legs, neither of which were particularly attractive anymore. Dark-red roses bloomed on the floral bedspread under her. The Soldier left her where she lay on the marital bed, her legs spread as if she was beckoning to her husband in invitation. But in truth they’d only fallen open after the Soldier had cut away the rope holding her in place. Her blue eyes were burning a hole into the back of his head, watching him, trying to anticipate his next move. Suddenly she started whimpering, trashing against the rope still holding her wrists above her head.

But the Soldier was already walking away from her, not giving any indication that he was planning on returning. Something else must have caught her attention. He half expected a child to walk around the corner, which would have been the most logical explanation for her distress. The Soldier wouldn’t have hurt a child. He hadn’t been given orders to do so and Ermentrout and his family knew better than to publically speak about the Fist of HYDRA. No, she needn’t have worried.

It was a kitten.

Steve liked kittens. The thought hit the Soldier between the eyes, searing hot like all of his clear memories were, and he had to hold on to the Ermentrouts’ dresser to steady himself. The kitten rubbed against his heavy boots, looking up at him with wide green eyes. Steve would have complimented the cat on its beauty and dragged it home to draw it and stuff it with bacon he couldn’t afford. The Soldier, well, the Soldier had no opinions on kittens one way or the other. He picked it up anyway, settling it in the crook of his metal arm so he could pet it with his good hand. The whimpers from the bed continued even as the kitten started purring.

“What’s its name?” the Soldier asked, the first time he’d spoken tonight.

“L-lara,” Mrs Ermentrout whispered. “She’s a present from the Moscow office.”

The Soldier had seen such cats in Russia before. They had fluffy collars, bushy tails and hair between their toes to keep their paws warm and dry even in Siberia. He hadn’t been allowed to touch one then, but there was no stopping him now. It wasn’t part of his mission (much like his plans of visiting his old apartment with Steve for the first time in years after he was done here), but it was something he wanted. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to do anything, but the kitten was warm and soft, her eyes wide and trusting. No one had looked at him like that, not since Steve, not since before the war. Cupping the kitten’s head, he looked down at her. So fragile, so beautiful. He could feel every knob in her spine, like a string of pearls under his fingers. It would have been so laughably easy to destroy her, to destroy her like he destroyed everything. But there was something else, something he needed to remember. It was connected to Steve, but his memories were like slippery fish; always slipping back under the surface of his consciousness before he could get a good grip on them. There was something he absolutely needed to remember, an itch he had to scratch.

“You don’t wanna be here, do you?” Mrs Ermentrout whispered from the bed. “You’d better run then. A week ago they gave a ball for me and now you’re here. They’re gonna do the same to you once you’ve stopped being useful. Just you wait and see.”

The Soldier wanted her to stop speaking. Her voice sounded wrecked, like it cost her everything to say this. And she was scaring the fish away, further down to where his memory was boggy ground and the water too thick and brown to reveal anything.

She was wrong anyway. HYDRA wouldn’t have punished her husband, if he hadn’t deserved it.

The Soldier carefully put the kitten down on the bed with Mrs Ermentrout before he could ruin her soft fur with his bloodied fingers. Necessary evils left stain that no amount of soap could ever wash clean.

The senator’s wife kept her eyes fixed on him until he left the room.

-

Outside the Ermentrout residence the Soldier’s favourite field handler was waiting. Michael Kreuzer, a German HYDRA operative, was smoking a cigarette, the smoke spiraling upwards into the night sky. His copper hair was sticking up in gravity-defying angles, which meant that Kreuzer was impatient. He shoved his hand into the pocket of his caramel coat, pulled it out again. The Soldier wanted to tell him to stop; although it was still night time, there were always watchful eyes in elegant neighbourhoods like this one. A nervous-looking man would look suspicious and the last thing they needed was another dead cop.

“You done?” Kreuzer asked when he saw the Soldier approaching. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he catapulted his still burning cigarette into Mrs Ermentrout’s rose bushes. “I’m sorry I can’t let you roam today. They gave me hell for letting you go yesterday. I mean, you were just looking, right? It’s not like you killed anyone you weren’t supposed to. Stupid old men,” he grumbled.

Kreuzer was thirty years old, married to a woman named Michaela, which he found endlessly funny, and addicted to cigarettes. Cupping his hands around the flame from his zippo to light a new one, Kreuzer kept raging about stupid old HYDRA goats and their inability to see beyond their prehistoric protocols and ideas. The Soldier suspected that Kreuzer would not move up the ranks very quickly.

“You know, you should just leave. Just go. What’re they gonna do to stop you?”

The Soldier didn’t reply because he had no answer and he didn’t want to entertain the thought anyway. It was his duty to shape the century and take care of the faceless grey mass of people HYDRA had put under his protection. Sometimes certain sacrifices had to be made, but once it was all over, even Mrs Ermentrout would see that her beauty was not too big a price to pay for order and harmony. Kreuzer, too, would come to see that leaving wasn’t an option. Where would the Soldier have gone to anyway? Mother HYDRA was everywhere. She’d find him and take him back under her wing, to nurture and protect.

Nurture and protect. Protect. A fish tail swerving out of sight. A memory. Protect. Steve.

This time a frustrated grunt escaped his lips and he pointed to their car. He wanted to get back to HQ now and forget the entire episode. His visit to Mrs Ermentrout was something he would have gladly liked to wipe from memory. Everything about this mission, from beginning to end, had left a bitter taste at the back of the Soldier’s throat and Kreuzer wasn’t helping.

And then his eyes widened as a pang of shock hit his pain.

“You let me roam yesterday?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

Kreuzer shifted his weight and bit his lip, his eyes saying yes while his lips remained close. It had been a mistake to tell him, but there was no turning back now. He must have done something yesterday, something they didn’t want him to remember and it was connected to that memory evading him time and time again.

“Look, you didn’t really do anything bad, in case you’re worried about that. You just went to visit your old friend or something. You didn’t even stay long. We agreed on that, didn’t we? And I know you always keep your end of a bargain. But… I dunno, they got pretty excited about it. Pierce, mostly. He wasn’t mad or anything, but he wanted to know everything about it.” Kreuzer stopped himself, shaking his head. “Let’s just go back, okay? You’re screwing with my mind.” But Kreuzer was still pacing in front of their car, running white-knuckled fingers through his copper hair. “Just- I don’t even know. Just be prepared for things to change when we get back, okay? And don’t blame me. I wasn’t the one who led them there.”

Kreuzer gestured at the car and finally, finally they both got inside and Kreuzer pulled away from the curb. The Soldier felt a little better once they were outside the reach of prying eyes and thinking got easier. Changes. Were they going to kill Steve? It might not have been the worst thing to happen to him. Once HYDRA had set her eyes on someone, they never left her sight. She was, above all, a jealous mistress who kept her children wedged against her bosom. But it was only to protect. The Soldier knew that.

Kreuzer didn’t know it yet, but he would.

-

Pierce clapped the Soldier on the back when he gave his mission report, congratulating him on his success. “I knew you could do it. I’ve always been your greatest champion, you see. Some of the higher-ups thought it might be best to abandon this particular project, but I told them no. Told them that we needed someone just like you.”

Something warm fluttered in the Soldier’s chest. It had been a long time since anyone had needed someone just like him. To most of his handlers he was just a weapon and there were plenty of those, easy to replace and easy to destroy, if they no longer functioned flawlessly. Pierce reached for the Soldier’s hair, scratching his scalp with surprisingly gentle fingers. Lowering his head, the Soldier leaned into the touch, knowing he was no better than any wild beast in this moment and not caring overly much. It was touch.

“You won’t remember, but I promised you a reward for all your good work. Something that will take care of your… needs. You see, I got a lot of things on my schedule and as much as I like spending time with you, I just can’t always be there to coddle you, sweetheart.”

The Soldier had never been called anything like this by any HYDRA agent before and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It was something reserved for girls or young children and he was neither. He’d stopped thinking of himself as a man, however, so it was probably all right. Pierce was never wrong, anyway.

“Would you like to see your reward now?” Pierce asked, his voice turning to sweet honey again, and the Soldier nodded because he knew Pierce wanted to show him.

Walking the Soldier down into the bowels of HQ, Pierce kept talking to him. It wasn’t anything important, nothing directly related to HYDRA, but the Soldier listened. He always did when Pierce told him things. He learned that Pierce’s son had been asking for a dog, but Mrs Pierce didn’t want one in the house because she hated animal hairs and the boy wasn’t going to be there for much longer anyway, so Mrs Pierce would be the one having to take care of the animal.

“You see, it’s much easier to play for the opposite team, like you do. Men never make a fuss like women do. Alex has been good enough this year to warrant a pet, but an unhappy woman in the home? Trust me, hell is preferable to that.” Pierce shuddered. “She doesn’t put out the way she used to either. Perhaps it’s time to find a mistress. And there we are.”

The Soldier knew the chamber Pierce had led him to. He, too, had lived in one just like it, with a one-way mirror outside so HYDRA personnel could keep tabs on him and make sure he wouldn’t hurt himself after waking from his long sleep. They generally preferred transporting him in a frozen state because it minimized the possibility of foreign agents catching sight of him.

“Happy Birthday, dear boy.”

The Soldier was relatively certain that today was not his birthday, neither his biological one nor the day when he had reawakened as the Fist of HYDRA. Staring through the glass, he caught sight of something so wondrous and precious, it was all he could do not to turn and rip out Pierce’s throat.

Because on the other side of the mirror Steve was resting on a cot, small and fragile as he’d always been. Only now he didn’t even have the flimsy protection of Brooklyn. He was right here in the eye of the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry there wasn't a whole lot of Stevebucky interaction in this chapter. I needed to set up certain things and introduce you to some new characters, but from now on there'll be more of what we're all here for. :D


	3. Chapter 3

Steve’s long lashes fluttered against his cheekbones when the Soldier entered the room. His survival instincts were kicking in, but they wouldn’t have mattered, even if he hadn’t been so pitifully small and fragile. The Soldier knew how to bring much taller men than himself to their knees.

Pierce shut the door behind the Soldier with a resounding _click_ and then the Soldier was really and truly alone for the first time in years. There were no rules of engagement for this particular situation, leaving the Soldier stranded on a shore he hadn’t tread in years. He stood in the middle of the room, his shoulders drooping and his fingers flexing by his side. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t this nothingness. He’d thought of this moment as the ending of a journey, perhaps the beginning of a new life, but in truth it was just more of the same. This moment was orchestrated by HYDRA and so it contained HYDRA props and HYDRA dramaturgy.  
Despite his best efforts, the Soldier still entertained some fantasies about returning back to Steve one day. Steve would open the door, a cry of shock would escape his lips, but then he’d fold the Soldier into a bone-crushing embrace and never let go. He’d give the Soldier a hot bath and even hotter soup and they’d huddle under the blankets all night.

There were no blankets on the cot. HYDRA regulated room temperature so that no extra protection was needed. Besides, prisoners could get very creative once they had got it into their heads that ending their lives in HYDRA’s care was the best course of action. The Soldier didn’t like the flimsy night gown Steve had been put into, however. Skinny as he was, Steve was always either cold or hungry. He hoped the HYDRA doctors had calculated his caloric needs accordingly.

Steve’s eyelids fluttered open, his lashes kicking up a whirlwind of confusion and barely slept-off drugs. The Soldier still couldn’t move, his heart beating a staccato rhythm against his ribs. _Steve, Steve, Steve_. He was here with him, but it wasn’t how the Soldier had planned their reunion to go. It wasn’t meant to be this way, but HYDRA had deemed it best for the Soldier to re-acquaint himself with his old friend like this (Mother HYDRA was good, kind and just and always, always right; hadn’t she taken in the Soldier when even his own allies had left him to die in the snow?) and who was he to question that?

Steve finally managed to sit up, blinking in confusion at the unfamiliar surroundings. Knuckling his eyes, he shook his head several times as if to clear it. The Soldier was familiar with the confusion, so he waited. He would have waited, no matter what Steve did, because he didn’t know what to do. Pierce hadn’t given him any specific orders for how to handle Steve and the Soldier had long since given up on making his own decisions when it came to other people. Missions were where his mind was needed, not interpersonal relationships.

But Steve’s eyes finally fixed on him and the Soldier knew he was going to have such a relationship, whether he liked it or not. Steve, despite his angelic appearance, had always been stubborn to a fault. If he decided he wanted to interact with the Soldier (and why would he? Has he ever gone out to look for you? Have any of your so-called friends? No one wants you because you’re _dirtywrongtraitorousbadbadbad_ ), he would.

Swinging his legs off the cot, Steve faced him. The Soldier saw a complex set of emotions playing out across Steve’s features, emotions he had felt himself over his rebirth as the Fist of HYDRA. He waited. It took some time to get used to the idea that everything you had ever known turned out to be a lie. But Steve recovered far more quickly than the Soldier had calculated. Steve took a stumbling step towards him like a zombie in the science fiction stories the Soldier had enjoyed _before_. Without meaning to, the Soldier took a step back, bracing himself for an attack that was unlikely to come.

“Bucky?” Steve’s eyes were wide and so blue (can’t touch, can’t taint, can’tcan’tcan’t). The Soldier shook his head against the onslaught of memory, his left hand clenching reflexively.

They really shouldn’t have left him alone with Steve because the Soldier couldn’t take it. Not that word, not those memories. He couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t.

_James ‘Bucky’ Buchanan Barnes, huh? He doesn’t exist. He never did. He’s something you made up to feel better about yourself. That person? Wasn’t even good enough to save. Why would they have wasted precious resources on that person, on that thing? No one’s ever loved him or wanted him. They just told you that to make you feel better about yourself. But pity isn’t love and Bucky doesn’t exist, doesn’t exist, never existed in the first place. Bucky was bad, but you can become better._

“Bucky?” Steve was touching him and he really shouldn’t have done that because once the Soldier started touching people he either hurt them or he just couldn’t stop. Steve’s hand against his right forearm felt like a hot iron poker in the middle of the night (and the Soldier had first-hand experience with hot iron pokers in the middle of the night) and at the same time he wanted to edge closer. Perhaps he could. Steve had touched him, after all. Maybe that meant he could get more touch. But it wouldn’t be fair to Steve to touch him while he still thought that the Soldier was that other person who he most definitely wasn’t anymore. Steve had never been good at protecting himself, so the Soldier would have to do it for him, even if it meant ruining his chance of getting touched more.

“’M not him,” the Soldier rasped, just wanting to clear that up. Steve had to know that the Soldier wasn’t who he thought he was because he might expect things the Soldier wasn’t going to be. The Soldier served HYDRA and it was she who dictated who and what he was. It was simple, but Steve might not grasp the concept, unless it was explained to him.

“Of course you are. You’re Bucky. I’d know you anywhere, I-“

“No!” The Soldier yanked his arm free and jumped back, his chest falling and rising like he’d just run ten miles through the snow to escape allied forces (which he also had first-hand experience with) and couldn’t find a safe place to hide. “’M not him.”

“All right then. It’s okay. You don’t need to be him.” Steve held up his hands in surrender, understanding more quickly than the Soldier had expected. He’d expected a fight, maybe even tears, but certainly not this quick acceptance. Steve’s next words, however, swept the ground from underneath the Soldier’s feet, making him reel with the implications. “Can I hug you anyway?”

Steve had always been spectacularly bad at self-preservation, but the Soldier must have forgotten just how bad. How could Steve want to hug someone who could have crushed him under the heel of one of his heavy combat boots or who might have strangled him with the metallic contraption that served as his new arm? No, Steve had always been dumb about staying out of trouble and one day he was going to pay the price for it. Luckily, today wasn’t that day.

“Why would you want to do that?” the Soldier asked, taking another step back until his back hit the wall. The impact was heavy even through his combat armour, knocking the breath clear from his lungs. Throwing a panicked glance over Steve’s shoulder, he calculated a possible route of escape, but the room was small. He couldn’t leave without going through Steve. He was trapped. There was nowhere else to go for him now. And Steve kept following him, one unsteady step at a time, until he stood right in front of the Soldier. He’d forgotten how beautiful Steve was with his wide blue eyes and blond hair. He was the Soldier’s dreams made flesh.

“I saw you the other night,” Steve said. “You were watching me from the fire escape ladder and you were… dancing. I thought I’d gone mad because suddenly you were there. I thought I’d made you up cause you were dead. They told me you were dead somewhere in Europe and that you weren’t gonna come back. Damn, Buck, I thought I’d lost you and there you were, fucking dancing on the fucking fire escape like it was nothing.”

The Soldier didn’t quite catch Steve’s next words because he suddenly surged forward, throwing himself into the Soldier’s arms and clinging to his neck. Rising to the tips of his toes, he held on to the Soldier and he realised he’d never had any choice in the matter at all. Wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist, he pulled him in, held him until there wasn’t even the space of a breath between them. His nose found Steve’s hair, breathing in his scent. His eyes fell shut. The soap was standard HYDRA issue, but underneath he detected the real Steve. His first real touch in years and there just wasn’t _enough_ of Steve. He wanted to wrap himself in Steve like he was a warm blanket after a cold day and hold on to him until he could forget the last four years of his life, until he could pretend that he was still the person Steve remembered and they were back in their shabby apartment in Brooklyn.

With a growl the Soldier placed his hands under Steve’s bare thighs and lifted him as easily as he’d lifted Mrs Ermentrout’s kitten. Steve wrapped his legs around the Soldier’s hips, allowing the touch like it was a well-practiced ritual between them. “God, Buck, I’ve _missed_ you.” Steve cupped the Soldier’s jaw with gentle fingers and pulled his head down, perhaps to get a closer look at him. That had to be it, the Soldier decided in the split-second before Steve’s lips found his own in a searching, tender kiss. His lips were warm, perhaps a little bit chafed, but that only made things more terribly real.

Kisses were a thing of the past, something the Soldier’s body seemed no longer capable of comprehending. Jerking back, he set Steve down. No, it wasn’t right. HYDRA hadn’t given him Steve to do any of that, even if the aching patch of flesh between his thighs begged to differ. The Soldier was not to reproduce and surely he wasn’t to spend himself for nothing.

Steve kept talking to him, his voice rising in alarm when the Soldier strode towards the door, but the Soldier didn’t listen, couldn’t listen, didn’t want to listen. There were things he was allowed and things he wasn’t and if this was a test of his loyalties, he was going to pass with flying colours.

He punched a button at the side of the door and a moment later Kreuzer let him out. Steve’s voice was ringing in his ears all the way up to the top floors where Pierce was waiting for him.

-

“They’ve really fucked with your mind, haven’t they? Poor boy.”

The Soldier was sitting in one of the plush armchairs Pierce kept in his office. They were meant for visitors, but Pierce had ushered him towards them anyway, rubbing soothing circles into his back. He wore the worried expression of a father when he took the chair across from the one the Soldier had been pushed into. Folding his hands between his knees, Pierce leaned forward. “So what was the problem, son? Couldn’t get it up? Did the boy not meet your expectations? I just figured you wanted him because it was him you went to look at when that dumb boy Kreuzer let you run off. We can get you another one, if you’d prefer.”

The Soldier shook his head, stringy hair falling over his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Pierce raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s easy enough. I should have shown you the bottle of Vaseline. I’m sorry I forgot about that. You use that to make your… entrance go a little more smoothly, you see.”

The Soldier didn’t even want to think about that. It wasn’t what he meant, anyway. Of course he was well aware of the mechanics, but knowing how to do something and knowing whether you were _allowed_ were two entirely different things.

“I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to.”

Pierce cupped his jaw, a far less gentle echo of what Steve had done only minutes before, and yanked the Soldier’s head up so he was forced to look at Pierce. “I didn’t give you the boy to mock you or for you to stare at him lovingly through the mirror. I want you to _fuck_ him.”

That the Soldier understood. It was a clear enough order, even if it had been put so crudely. He finally nodded in confirmation. “Mission confirmed.”

Shaking his head sadly, Pierce let go of the Soldier’s chin. “It’s not a mission. I just want you to have some fun before we have to freeze you again. Once you’ve taken my boy to school, we’re gonna have to do that, you see? The Soviets need you in Korea. There’s trouble brewing over there and we’ll need you to make sure HYDRA will come out on top of that trouble, you see? We need to show the world how useless governments truly are. You’ll do that for us, right?”

Of course he would. He always did and they both knew it. The Soldier had never once refused an order, but he was starting to think that maybe he’d have to. Protocol dictated that he follow orders, but he’d never been given something of his own before. He had clothes and armour and weapons, but none of these things were _his_. They were just accessories just might buy for a doll and they didn’t belong to the doll any more than the doll belonged to itself. There were always little girls pushing dolls around every which way.

“Sir, clarification needed.”

“Yes?” Pierce raised an eyebrow at him. “What is it, dear boy?”

“How am I to have intercourse?”

“I thought we’d gone over that. You just do it. I don’t care how or how often you do it, just as long as you blow off some steam. Jesus Christ on a motorcycle, any man would be glad to have what you have. Hell, _I_ would be glad to have unlimited access to my own personal fucktoy. I’ve given you the gift of any man’s wettest dreams and you don’t want it?”

“Thank you, sir. I was just making sure you didn’t have any preferences for how I do it.”

Pierce’s expression softened visibly, the corners of his mouth pointing down now. “I didn’t realise just how loyal you were, dear boy. You can do it however you want. Just don’t rough him up too badly. Broken toys won’t be replaced, just mended.”

-

The Soldier didn’t get to see Steve again that day or the next. Pierce had him spend time with Kreuzer who was supposed to act as his coach for the upcoming mission. Kreuzer’s hair looked even more disheveled than the last time the Soldier had seen him. He kept ranting all the way down to the HQ cafeteria, which the Soldier only got to eat in after particularly long and harrowing missions. HYDRA tended to feed him in his own quarters where no one could look at the Asset too closely.

“My wife’s starting to whine at me about babies all the time. But, you know, I just don’t think I want children right now. Or with her, for that matter. What if they all turn out to be annoying little whiners who ask me to buy them ponies or take them to the circus? I don’t like the circus. Clowns? Are fucking creepy, excuse my language. But they are, aren’t they? You know what we should do to make you more scary? Put clown make-up on you, that’s what. I’ll have to talk to Pierce about that. Anyway, as I was saying-“

The Soldier tuned him out after that because he knew that Kreuzer loved his wife and her infertility was a point of anxiety for him rather than annoyance. His thoughts returned to Steve, hidden deep within the bowels of HQ. He was probably scared, waiting for the Soldier to return to him. It was only logical since the Soldier was the only one he knew here (or thought he knew anyway). He wasn’t sure if he was going to be allowed to see him again any time soon, not after his conversation with Pierce. Maybe it would be a reward after his next mission.

They reached the cafeteria and Kreuzer chose a table at the fringe of the lively crowd gathered for lunch. The Soldier was to be trained, but that didn’t mean they were going to show him off. A waitress in a rather short skirt (probably not approved by HR) served them fish filets with fries. The Soldier’s belly roiled. He hadn’t had anything this greasy in years.

“They’re gonna want you to act normal. Normal people eat shit like this. The only way out is through,” Kreuzer said, picking up a fry. “C’mon, they’re good.”

The Soldier picked up a fry of its own, feeling the grease smearing his fingers. He opened his mouth, gingerly nibbling on the end of one fry. It scalded his tongue, like nothing had in years (keeping the Asset undamaged was of the utmost importance) and he shoved the rest of the fry in. It hurt and it made him feel so, so alive. He grabbed another and another before he felt Kreuzer’s hand on his wrist. “Take it easy, buddy. We’re not gonna take ‘em away. You’re supposed to look normal, not like a starved dog. C’mon, easy does it.”

The Soldier didn’t want to take it easy. He just wanted to bury himself in the hot, greasy potatoes until he no longer felt so cold inside. But Kreuzer had given him an order and he forced himself to eat more slowly, to pretend to be a person eating a casual meal. Every second bite he’d pick up the glass of water by his elbow and take a slow, measured sip. Kreuzer nodded approvingly and bumped his fist against the Soldier’s metal hand. “That’s good. Now, um, as for the more awkward point of this lovely outing… Pierce wants me to explain certain things to you. Such as how to have sex. Which you probably know more about than me. I mean, look at you. You were quite the handsome bastard, weren’t you?”

The Soldier wondered who had taught the German to speak like that. Surely HYDRA briefings didn’t include slang. It was probably just Kreuzer’s natural exuberance.

“So, you and that guy in the cellar… have you ever…?” Kreuzer made a rude gesture with his hands.

The Soldier recalled the way Steve’s mouth had been seeking his, like it was something he usually did for comfort. He’d forgotten so much throughout the wipes, but this was one thing he knew, knew it in his bones like he knew the shape of his own hand. He knew what Steve’s thighs felt like around his hips, how tight he was, how he’d always been holding back because he didn’t want to break him. He knew how much Steve had always needed it, not so much for the physical pleasure, but for something more. The expression in those wide blue eyes as he came around the Soldier was as much part of his brain structure as his cerebrum was. He did remember.

_Who’d want you? You’re dirtybadwrongwrongwrong. No one wants you. No one loves you. Only we do. We love you and want you. We’re your friends. No one else, no one else._

He nodded.

“Then you just do that. I mean, I don’t know. It should come naturally to you, if you’ve done it before. You just go with that and you’ll be golden. Just, you know, just actually do it. Pierce has scheduled a conjugal visit for you tonight and he’ll be mighty disappointed if you turn down his gift again.”

The Soldier nodded again because it was an order and he’d already promised to do it despite his misgivings. His stomach rumbled against the food and he looked down.

“Permission to go to the bathroom?”

“Granted. Fuck, granted post haste.” Kreuzer looked a little queasy himself when he ushered the Soldier down the hallway. No one needed to see the Asset puke its guts out, was what he was probably thinking.

And then the Soldier was hugging the porcelain bowl, the fries and fish and memories all swirling down the drain along with his last shreds of hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be rather porn-y, you guys. So you might wanna skip that one if that's not your cuppa. :D


	4. Chapter 4

When the Soldier had brushed his teeth, Kreuzer took him back downstairs to Steve’s room, carefully avoiding other HYDRA agents who weren’t supposed to see the Asset looking less than functional. The Soldier didn’t like being the Asset. It placed too many expectations on shoulders who’d forgotten how to make good on a promise.

His heart was pounding in his chest and a fine sheen of sweat was covering his entire body like a wet blanket (the Soldier knew all about being wrapped in wet blankets for hours on end; hot or frozen, they never felt good) and he took a deep, shuddery breath. Kreuzer turned to give him an encouraging smile. “It’s not a punishment, you know? Pierce had to fight really hard to get you this opportunity. I backed him cause I think being the Asset should come with certain, well, assets.” Kreuzer seemed pleased at his own joke and even giggled a little. “You just blow off some steam before the mission and you’ll feel right as rain again. Just pretend you ain’t hungry when we go out. You probably won’t be.”

Kreuzer kept rambling on, a constant backdrop to the Soldier’s thoughts. They were going to make him sleep with Steve and it was an order he probably couldn’t get out of. But he had to protect Steve. Steve wouldn’t want him like this. But Steve had kissed him. Still, it wasn’t right. The Soldier had never been asked to rape someone nor had he been raped himself. Some of his old handlers had asked for permission to do so, but they had quickly vanished, never to be seen again. Mother HYDRA didn’t mean to damage, only needed him to do certain things to ensure a better future. Perhaps they thought a sexually satisfied Asset was a better Asset. The Soldier didn’t know. He hadn’t had sex in so long, he’d forgotten what satisfaction felt like. And it didn’t matter because he was not going to give in, not with this. He couldn’t refuse an order, however. No, he couldn’t do that. But…

As always, his thoughts seemed to come back to this one point of reference: Steve.

Steve was the only thing that still mattered to the Soldier, everything else he’d left behind in the trenches and then, after, in the HYDRA labs. He wasn’t fighting for himself because he had nothing to fight. HYDRA was only ever doing what was best for him, for the rest of humanity. Still, he couldn’t help but think that perhaps this once HYDRA wasn’t right and this wasn’t what was best for everyone. He didn’t want to have sex with Steve if Steve was unwilling. It was just wrong.

But it was an order.

The thought kept punching his brain like a sandsack, again and again. Orders were to be followed ( _baddirtywrongwrongwrong_ , but you can yet redeem yourself) without question and for the most part the Soldier had been doing just that. He had never failed HYDRA, not even against overwhelming odds, and he had never refused or questioned an order. Still, when Kreuzer deposited him outside Steve’s door, he couldn’t help it. He turned, looking up at Kreuzer with a helpless expression.

“Okay, this isn’t gonna work. Don’t tell them I did this, but here.” Kreuzer reached behind himself, into the guard’s booth and handed the Soldier a radio. “My wife needs music to relax. Just listen to something mellow and it’ll work just fine. Man… for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Kreuzer paused, gritting his teeth. His copper hair looked like he’d been poking electrical appliances with wet fingers. “Listen, man. We’re buddies, right? If you won’t tell them you didn’t really do it, I won’t say anything either.”

With his hand already on the door knob, the Soldier stared at Kreuzer.

Of course his handler ranted and raved about old HYDRA goats, but he had never ever suggested ignoring an order before. He wasn’t supposed to do that. Orders were to be followed under any circumstances and against any odds. His handlers weren’t supposed to deter him from his duty and yet, and _yet_ , this was something the Soldier wanted. He wanted to obey Kreuzer rather than Pierce because Kreuzer’s order made _sense_ , it was what HYDRA was meant to be.

“Understood.” The word was barely audible as it dragged across the Soldier’s vocal cords, forcing its way out of his throat. He wasn’t supposed to say it, but he had to. Because this was about _Steve_ and somehow Steve made him forget about what he was really supposed to do. “Permission to enter, sir?” he asked at last, shifting the radio to rest in the crook of his metal arm.

“Granted,” Kreuzer said. “I’ll be over there reading magazines. And I’m gonna smoke. Fuck HR.”

The Soldier nodded in confirmation and turned the knob with his good hand. When he entered the room, Steve surged up from the bed, eyes wide and almost feral. “Buck, please listen to me. Just listen to me, babe, okay?”

The Soldier set the radio on the side table and closed the door. It clicked shut, sealing them off from the rest of the world. There was still the mirror, but the Soldier knew that Kreuzer wouldn’t be spying on him and no one else would be allowed to come down here as long as the Asset was there, doing HYDRA’s good work. Tilting his head to the side, he indicated that he was listening.

“I’m sorry, Buck. God, I’m so, so sorry. They told me you were dead. I didn’t _know_. If I’d known, I would’ve… I would’ve kicked their teeth in. I would’ve murdered every single one of them to get to you. What is this place? Is this some kind of, I don’t know, hidden Nazi base?”

Of course Steve wouldn’t know about HYDRA. The Allies wouldn’t have wanted that particular piece of intel to reach the public. They didn’t want the people to know that HYDRA were out there, looking out for them. They didn’t want the people to be saved or they’d risk losing what feeble hold on power they had. Steve would have to be taught, but the Soldier wasn’t sure he was the best person to do that. Steve looked so fragile in his night gown, like a sudden gust of wind might blow him away. He wasn’t ready for HYDRA, not yet.

“You couldn’t have done anything. They would’ve killed you.” Speaking never got any easier, the Soldier found. The words felt clumsy on his tongue, like he was a child learning to speak. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about any topic in a long time. It wasn’t really required, unless he had to make a tactical decision and even then grunts and pointing at objects usually sufficed.

“I would’ve killed them. Trust me, Buck, I would have.”

The Soldier flinched at the name. It wasn’t quite as bad as _Bucky_ , but it still made him want to jump out of his skin. He wasn’t that wicked person anymore. HYDRA had shown him his true potential and he’d left Bucky Barnes behind like an old pair of shoes in the dumpster.  
Frowning, Steve took a step closer to him, reaching out to touch his cheek. This time the Soldier let him because it was _touch_ and he needed it so badly. He leaned into it, closing his eyes, letting Steve’s cool skin be his anchor. He could allow himself this small moment, he thought. It wasn’t taking advantage when Steve was initiating the contact himself. He’d be pushed away any minute now, but he wanted it for as long as it lasted.

“You don’t like it when I call you that, right? I won’t do it again, doll. Promise.”

The Soldier was certain that ‘doll’ was not the right way to refer to him, no more than Pierce’s ‘sweetheart’ had been, but he didn’t mind with Steve. He’d heard it before, he thought, even if he couldn’t quite remember it right now. It hadn’t been burned into his brain quite the same way as Steve’s touch.

When Steve’s thumb starting rubbing against the Soldier’s cheek bone, a sound escaped his lips and he ducked his head, trying to hide the warmth burning behind his eyes. Steve wouldn’t want him, not like this, not the way he had become. He wasn’t the person he remembered (who’d ever want you? _dirtybadwrongwrongwrong_ ) nor was he of any consequence now. The Soldier followed orders and he did it well, but he didn’t have anything to offer beyond that. He was what HYDRA needed, but he could never be what Steve needed him to be because he couldn’t have two masters.

“Hey, look at me.” Steve brushed back the Soldier’s hair until he could look him in the eyes. Steve’s eyes were so very blue, the most vibrant colour the Soldier had seen in a long time. “They did something to you, right? I don’t know what and you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to, but I want you to remember something for me, okay? Can you do that, love?”

Steve might as well have asked him to fish the ocean dry because the Soldier’s memory wasn’t the best even under optimal circumstances. He mostly remembered Steve and their apartment, but anything beyond that got too difficult to discern from less pleasurable memories. How had Pierce put it? They’d really fucked with his mind.

“What do you want me to remember?” he asked at last, biting back the _sir_ hovering on the tip of his tongue.

“I’m with you till the end of the line?” It sounded more like a question than a statement, but it made something flutter in the pit of the Soldier’s stomach, somewhere deep and dark and hidden. It was a well previously untapped, even by his handlers and the Soldier couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Throwing up his arms in defense against he knew not what, he turned away from Steve. “ _No_.”

He wanted to get out of this cell and run until his muscles burned in agony and his legs buckled under his weight. _Till the end of the line_.

The secret was that there was no end to the line, there was no limit to what HYDRA could do to him because they knew him in ways no one else would ever know him, not even Steve, and ignoring that, thinking that he could get out of this would only ever end up in inevitable agony. Steve didn’t know it yet because he hadn’t been with HYDRA long enough, but he’d come to understand. And then he’d stop being the Steve from the Soldier’s memory. He’d become another tainted, broken thing like everything else the Soldier touched and he couldn’t let that happen.

Batting away Steve’s hands, he paced the short length of the room, trying to get his breath and mind under control. He wasn’t supposed to get agitated. Steve’s fingers kept searching him out, glancing off his bad arm, his blunt nails scraping against the metal. The Soldier kept pulling away. Steve kept following him, trying to turn him around and face him. Steve didn’t stop, but neither did he. He couldn’t stop because if Steve caught him, he’d have to talk to him and he couldn’t.

“Love. Stop.”

The Soldier stopped his pacing, automatically reacting to the order. His shoulders and back were shaking, cramping as Steve placed his hand between his shoulder blades. Steve’s delicate artist’s fingers were trembling, too, the Soldier noticed.

“I’m sorry, okay? I just need you to calm down. We’ll talk this through. We’ll find a solution.”

Steve’s fingers were cold, the Soldier realised. He was shaking all over and that at least was something the Soldier knew how to handle. Steve’s small hands vanished in his. The Soldier hadn’t been wrong in his initial assessment; Steve was much thinner now, his bones bird-hollow and fragile through their delicate protection of skin and muscle. Holding on to Steve’s hands, the Soldier thought of what to do. The best course of action would have been to share body heat. The Soviets had taught him that and he’d spent more than one night huddled against Kreuzer’s body, listening to the man’s silly jokes. If he could do it with Kreuzer, he could do it with Steve, couldn’t he?

“You’re cold. We need to share body heat.”

“Oh is that what kids are calling it nowadays?”

Looking down at Steve in confusion, the Soldier caught the beginning of a smile forming on Steve’s lips. It was meant to be a joke then. Between Pierce’s lack of humour and Kreuzer’s unintelligible jokes, the Soldier sometimes wasn’t sure anymore what he was meant to take serious and what he was supposed to laugh at.

“Let’s put on some music,” Steve suggested, reaching for the radio. “You like dancing, don’t you?”

A moment later HYDRA FM crackled into life, promising the best music in HQ. A woman’s voice started singing in German, a language the Soldier had picked up along with half a dozen others. She was singing about her restless heart, unable to quiet down in the dead of night. Steve switched off the light, leaving the feeble lightbulb in the opposite corner as their only source of light.

Grabbing the Soldier’s hand, Steve took a clumsy step forward. He’d never been good at this, the Soldier remembered and the thought made a smile of his very own tug the corners of his mouth. “You’re doing it wrong, doll.”

His voice sounded different to his own ears and Steve’s answering gasp confirmed it. Placing a hand on Steve’s waist, the Soldier eased them into the rhythm. He hadn’t been this close to someone he cared about in years. It always came as a shock when he realised he was allowed to touch and feel. A moment later, Steve rested his head against the Soldier’s chest, a heavy, solid warmth. “I’ve missed you so much.”

The Soldier swallowed thickly. “Missed you, too.”

Steve’s breath was hot against the Soldier’s chest, but in the twilight the Soldier couldn’t tell whether he was crying or not. It wasn’t the time or the place for tears anyway. Mother HYDRA wasn’t kind to weaklings.

Grabbing Steve’s hand more firmly, he turned him outward, spinning him away from his own body before snapping him back abruptly. Steve’s back collided with the Soldier’s chest almost painfully hard. He’d have to work on his technique. Later. Steve’s hips were moving back against the Soldier’s in an all too distracting manner, but he couldn’t find fault with Steve’s rhythm for once. Inching closer, the Soldier nuzzled the back of Steve’s neck, breathing in his scent. Something inside the Soldier started rearing its head after years of sleep. Grabbing Steve by the hips he turned him around. He could hear his own pulse hammer through his temples and wrists and his breath came out in short, stuttery gasps.

“Kiss me, love,” Steve whispered, rising on his tip toes again.

The Soldier stared down at him, still unable to move. He was allowed. Both HYDRA and Steve wanted him to do this, but did he want to do it himself? Could he do it? He wasn’t sure, but then it didn’t matter anymore because something in his belly pulled him forward and he crushed his lips against Steve’s. Tasting Steve slammed a thousand memories right back into his brain and his arms tightened around Steve’s waist. With a small gasp Steve deepened the kiss, his tongue painting more memories on the Soldier’s. Without thinking about anything but Steve, the Soldier picked him up, knowing that Steve’s legs would come around his own hips, without knowing why he was so sure about that. They did.

They collapsed on the cot in a tangle of limbs and night gown and blankets, their lips never once separating. Steve fisted his hand in the Soldier’s hair, keeping him in place, even as the Soldier’s hands started roaming Steve’s thighs. He’d done this before. He’d done this a thousand times. Trailing his hands over the backs of Steve’s thighs to the sensitive hollow of his knee, he marvelled at every sigh and gasp he elicited. His hands weren’t just made for killing.

Steve bucked his hips against him, murmuring something against the Soldier’s lips he didn’t understand at first. He was lost in the creamy skin bared to him as the night gown finally found its way to the floor. Steve was clawing at the Soldier’s uniform, but he kept whispering and moaning and writhing, unable to keep still for even a second.

“What is it you want, doll?” the Soldier asked and he was almost shocked at how teasing his own voice sounded.

“Shut up and fuck me, jerk.”

The Soldier found something odd bubbling up in his chest, something he had almost forgotten. When he let out the laugh it sounded odd to his ears, but he couldn’t stop it. Shucking his pants to the floor, he moved over Steve’s body again, hitching his legs around his hips. The Soldier wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly felt different. There was a weight to his body now that hadn’t been there before, a firm concreteness he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He remembered.

Moving down the bed, he placed soft, hot kisses against the inner sides of Steve’s thighs. He wished he could see him spreading his legs, baring himself to the Soldier’s touch. Feeling Steve arching his back impatiently, the Soldier moved further down, licking a long, hot strip over the underside of Steve’s cock. It tasted of hot and memory and the Soldier could have spent a life time teasing it into full erection. But he didn’t have that long.

Hooking his thumbs on Steve’s rim, he spread him open. In the dim light he saw Steve’s hole twitching and quivering under his own breath. “Please. _Buck_. Please.”

The sharp tug of Steve’s fingers in his hair distracted the Soldier from the name that wasn’t his name anymore. Moving forward, he started licking around the tight ring of muscles, making sure to keep his tongue soft and relaxed until he felt Steve relax under him. Bringing up his hand, the Soldier felt how the taut muscles in his belly went pliant. He was still making all the right sounds, even as his body went pliant under the Soldier’s touch, sounds that sent sparks fizzing along the Soldier’s back and straight down to his cock. Struggling to keep in a moan of his own, the Soldier gently slipped the tip of his tongue into Steve’s body. Steve’s muscles gripped him tightly, twitching and trying to keep him inside. The Soldier had never felt so wanted, so needed as with Steve coming alive under his hands and tongue. Curling the tip of his tongue, he gently worked Steve open, even as everything inside of him screamed to do more, to just plunge into that tight wet heat and finally be _home_ again.

“I’ve missed you so much. I need you. Buck, please, I need you. I need you.”

Steve, composed and teasing Steve was falling apart under him and the Soldier knew he had to make his move soon.

Sitting up, he brought his good hand up to Steve’s mouth. “You need to lick my fingers. We gotta get you wet, baby. You know you can’t take it otherwise.” Such foreign words on his tongue.

“I can. Jesus, Buck, I can take you dry if that means I can have you again.”

Steve surged up again, flipping them over in a display of strength that surprised even the Soldier. Reaching behind himself, Steve started touching the Soldier’s cock, fisting it in his hand. A flick of his wrist and the Soldier’s toes curled in the boots he’d forgotten to take off in his haste.

“I want you.” Steve kept repeating the words so often that the Soldier had no choice. He’d never had any choice at all, from the moment he pulled Steve against his chest. When Steve finally lined up with his cock, let it slip into his body, inch by glorious inch, the Soldier knew he was lost. There was one loyalty in his life only, only one master he could ever serve.

“Steve.” He gripped Steve’s hips, holding him with just the tip of his cock in Steve’s ass. “Do you really want this?” he asked, just to make sure, just to draw out the torture at moment longer.

“Shut up if all you’re gonna ask is dumb questions.”

When Steve started to move, the Soldier forgot about asking any more question. But he could tell something wasn’t quite right. Steve’s hips were setting the rhythm and that wasn’t in his memory so much. Holding on tight, he flipped them over and the _keening_ from Steve’s lips told him it was the right move. Hitching Steve’s legs as high as he could, he started to move. He couldn’t hold back anymore and he knew Steve didn’t want him to. Steve wanted this, wanted him to fuck him, own him, make him his.

“ _Buck_.”

Always this word, always. The Soldier didn’t want to examine it too closely, but it spurred him own, made his hips snap forward almost viciously. Steve cried out that foreign name again and again. Hot liquid between them. The world was expanding and contracting around the Soldier, again and again, in rapid succession, dragging the Soldier’s focus to one point in the universe and one point only and then he came hard and without warning.

And there was one word and one name only dancing in front of his inner eye. It was scratching and etching and burning itself into his brain, even as his body shuddered over Steve’s: _Bucky_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, not terribly hot porn, but it just didn't suit the mood. There'll be some of that later on. :D


	5. Chapter 5

Steve rested in the Soldier’s arms like a baby. Every now and then he’d snuggle closer, his blond hair brushing the underside of the Soldier’s chin. Trying to find a comfortable position to fall asleep in, the Soldier shifted to his side. Steve was like an octopus however; he threw his arms and legs around the Soldier, holding him in place. For a skinny kid Steve was quite strong. At least where choking the Soldier half to death was concerned.

Fighting the urge to act against this potential threat, the Soldier went still. He wasn’t going to hurt Steve, no after the damage he’d already caused tonight. Wincing, he thought back to when he’d pulled out of Steve, the gasp of pain, the moment of confused panic. Steve had reassured him that they’d done much worse before, but the Soldier wasn’t sold on the idea of mixing pain with pleasure. He’d seen plenty of the first and too little of the latter to like it. He washed first Steve then himself with water from the small sink next to the cot. There was almost no pressure to the water at all and he took little pleasure in the act. He had liked it once upon a time. At least he thought he remembered taking great pride in his appearance and its maintenance.

Leaning back as far as he could go with Steve sprawled on top of him, the Soldier tried to get comfortable once more, but he found that the cot was too soft on his back. He couldn’t sleep here, not with Steve in his arms. Not like this. The fierce need to _protect_ would keep him up all night long.

Suddenly the door banged against the wall, the light switch was flipped up and Kreuzer’s worried face appeared over the bed. It took everything the Soldier had not to growl at him. “I’m _sorry_. We just really gotta get a move on. Pierce’s home was attacked. We gotta move his family to our Maine facility.”

The Soldier was on his feet before Kreuzer had a chance to start rambling again. He made sure to be gentle about disentangling himself from Steve, but he still woke up. With his mussed hair and sleepy eyes he looked even younger than he already did.

“What’s going on? Where you going?” he murmured.

“I have a mission. You need to stay here. I’ll come and see you again when I can.”

Kreuzer looked to the side briefly before plastering a painful-looking smile on his face. “You’ll be fine, promise. We’ll take really good care of you until your, um, gentleman friend returns.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you gonna kidnap and manhandle me again?”

“Ah, don’t be a sourpuss. At least I got you two lovebirds back together, didn’t I?” Kreuzer pouted. “Anyway, say what you gotta say. I’ll be waiting outside.”

The Soldier heard Steve’s bare feet padding across the floor to stand behind him. A moment later the octopus arms were back. Steve was pressing against the soldier’s back like he might never let go again, which would have been the Soldier’s preferred outcome to this situation. But it wasn’t his decision to make. When he had a mission, he had to go.

“Promise you won’t forget about me or what we did, okay?”

“I won’t.” The Soldier left without another word, without a look back, without a touch. If he’d turned, he wouldn’t have been able to go on his mission. And if he didn’t go, they’d do much worse to him than a simple mission.

-

“It’s Ermentrout, you see?” Kreuzer was driving like an elderly lady on sleeping pills, but the Asset wasn’t allowed to drive anymore after the incident in Copenhagen. They’d made sure to show him footage of Copenhagen after each wipe, just to impress upon him the need for said wipes. The Asset saw that they had a point. “You know, I told Pierce that roughening up his missus was a bad idea. The bird’s name’s actually _Birdy_. You don’t-“

“Broads.” Turning towards Kreuzer, the Asset raised an eyebrow.

“I love broads! What about them? I thought you didn’t love them?”

“In the United States the correct term would be ‘broad’, not ‘bird’.”

Kreuzer remained silent for so long the Asset thought he’d given up on the conversation altogether. When Kreuzer did speak again, he seemed nervous, pale, like he hadn’t slept in a while and was only keeping it together because of the cigarettes and coffee in his system.

“You know, maybe Ermentrout’s not completely off. He says we should retire you and let you get on with your life somewhere far from here. Pierce is against it, naturally. But… who knows, right? Would you like that? Would you like to… not be the Asset?”

The Asset wasn’t the Soldier, not exactly. The Soldier might have hesitated, especially after having seen what might have been if he had never become the Asset at all. But he was the Asset now and his answer came quick and true, like the bullets from his rifle. “I exist to serve HYDRA. HYDRA is good and just. I-“

“Yeah, okay, big guy. I get it.” Running a hand through his hair, Kreuzer fumbled for words. “I’ve been good to you, though, right? I haven’t… hurt you in any way?”

“HYDRA is good and just. Whichever treatment she foresees for me is-“

“Yeah, okay. We’re there.” Kreuzer looked disappointed, but the Asset couldn’t find any flaw with his approach to Kreuzer’s question. He was meant to be a loyal servant and he had been. There was nothing wrong with what he’d said, but Kreuzer still looked at him in the way Pierce did when the Asset acted out. The Asset rarely acted out anymore. He mostly got impatient when missions weren’t perfectly planned and he had a better idea of how to handle things, but even that happened so rarely, no one ever took him to task for it anymore.

The Pierce’s house was huge and Victorian, the kind of castle only a select few could afford to maintain. HYDRA was truly good to her beloved children. Kreuzer went to knock on the front door, turning several times as if to make sure they weren’t pursued. It was a laughable idea really; the Asset would have caught any potential threats long before Kreuzer. No one was there, nothing out of place. The place was supposed to be under attack, but there were no bullet holes, no chipped paint on the mint green front door, no panicking women or children. It was all perfectly normal and safe.

The Asset moved to stand in the shadows behind Kreuzer when the door finally opened, revealing a redhead with eyes the colour of torturously slow murder. “Kreuzer. What brings you to my doorstep at this ungodly hour?” Mrs Pierce crossed her arms over her ample breasts.

“You’re under attack, ma’am. I am to escort you and Alexander to Maine immediately.”

“My husband hasn’t called.” She looked suspicious and as far as the Asset was concerned, she had every right to be. Something wasn’t adding up here. There was no immediate threat and Kreuzer was the only one who had called upon the Asset. There should have been more people present for such an important mission. The Asset could do a lot, but he was no miracle worker. Holding off the sheer number of attackers it would have taken to breach the Pierce residence would have been beyond even his abilities. He realised it now, just in time. If the Asset hadn’t been drunk on hormones and touch, he might have figured it out a lot sooner.

Kreuzer’s neck snapped easily under his metal fingers, as easily as a dragonfly in a child’s hand. The mint green door slammed shut. Kreuzer turned in his arms, struggling. For a moment they were as close as lovers. The expression in his eyes was one the Asset had never seen before, but immediately recognised.

 _Betrayal_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter was a little shorter than usually. It should still provide enough food for thought. XD At least I hope so. If you wish to discuss this story or, well, pretty much anything else, come find me on Tumblr: [sassgardianlass](http://sassgardianlass.tumblr.com)!


	6. Chapter 6

There were hands on the Asset, yanking him, tearing him every which way, and he suddenly knew something was wrong. He hadn’t done what was expected of him and the fight went out of him. He went perfectly still as the HYDRA agents dragged him away from Pierce’s doorstep and to a van parked down the road. It was still too dark to see much of anything, but the Soldier (he was no asset if he didn’t do well) thought he could see a flash of copper in the distance. Perhaps he hadn’t quite crushed Kreuzer’s windpipe after all. He should have. Kreuzer had not been honest about the mission and the Soldier _knew_ he hadn’t come to the Pierces’ home to save Mrs Pierce or Alexander.

The STRIKE team leader, a man named Mark Rumlow, crouched in front of the Soldier, slapping his thigh hard to get his attention. “What’s gotten into you? You forgot your place?”

The Soldier never had any doubts about his place in the world. He was to serve Mother HYDRA (good, kind and just) and he was never to question an order given him. But he still had a margin to make his own decisions if they were of any tactical importance. But would they believe him? Would anyone believe that his handler would do such a thing? He couldn’t be sure and he didn’t want them to think he had gone insane, too useless to keep around any longer. He didn’t just have himself to think of now, there was also Steve he needed to take care of. HYDRA had only taken Steve because of him. If the Soldier was no longer needed, his mate also became useless.

“I was under the impression that Kreuzer’s intentions were to hurt Mrs Pierce. I might have miscalculated,” he rasped at last, knowing there was nothing else to do now, no wall to hide behind. If he didn’t come clean, he might as well just strangle Steve (if they ever let him see Steve again) and shoot himself. “Permission to give a full mission report, sir?”

“Denied! What the fuck? You were supposed to _protect_ Kreuzer as well as the Pierces. He’s just told us it was just a routine sweep of the area. I’ll ask them to wipe you. Jesus. Told them you’d go bonkers one day, but is anyone ever listening to me?”

Rumlow turned away to talk to the rest of the STRIKE team, complaining about the incompetence of those in charge. It was a common theme with HYDRA agents, the Soldier thought. Everyone knew better than everyone else and got offended if their prowess wasn’t recognised and praised. No one had ever praised him much, not until Pierce had come into his life. He probably could have handled the situation differently, but in that moment, when he realised what Kreuzer was about to do, he’d only seen Pierce. Pierce’s hands stroking him, Pierce telling him what a good boy he was, and he’d _wanted_ that, more than he wanted to find a way to keep Kreuzer alive.

He had been wrong, he knew that now, but in that moment it had felt right.

They pulled into the HQ courtyard a minute later and the Soldier was ushered inside, flanked by four of STRIKE’s best and brightest. Rumlow went straight for Pierce’s quarters, crushing any hopes the Soldier might have harboured for a reunion with Steve, however brief it might have been. Their boots were loud in the hallways. A hush had settled over HQ like every single soul in there was holding their collective breath.

Pierce looked tired and not like he was inclined to praise the Soldier this time. He sat in his armchair, sending out the STRIKE team with an impatient hand gesture. He didn’t invite the Soldier to sit this time. His eyebrows drawn into a deep V, he glared at the Soldier.

“If it wasn’t for the affection I feel for you, boy, you’d be dead right about now. Attacking your _handler_ , your own fucking handler? What were you thinking? Or have you lost the ability to think like a normal fucking person? Have they wiped you one time too many?”

The Soldier swallowed and looked down at the scuffed toes of his boots. He hated the swear words. They reminded him of the war and his band of brothers, the men who had kept him alive and whom he had kept alive with his rifle. These men were long gone now and he’d never see them again, but their words and voices echoed through time, right into this moment. They wouldn’t have wanted him to just stand there and take Pierce’s abuse, they would have wanted him to _fucking_ fight. He couldn’t. He just stood there, unable to move or breathe or talk. He’d done so, so wrong and he was going to be punished for it. And what was worse, _Steve_ would be punished because the Soldier, despite everything Mother HYDRA had done for him, was still _wrongbadbaddirtyadisgracedirtbeneathbettermen’sboots_.

“I thought your family was under attack, sir,” the Soldier whispered at last, his voice sounding softer and younger than usually. “I wanted to help. Because they’re your family.”

Pierce’s expression softened a little, but the Soldier quickly looked away before he could make eye contact with Pierce. He didn’t deserve it. A misfiring weapon had to be careful around people or it might do the one thing it can’t repent for.

“Whatever shall I do with you? You were doing so well and now it’s all gone straight to hell. I should have known that Kreuzer was too young and inexperienced to handle you. He should have made it clear your mission was clandestine. He should have- Well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. You’ll be wiped, boy. Of course you have to be wiped. We’ll go as far and as deep as we can without frying your brain. Maybe that’ll help. You’ll get your memories back in time, of course, but maybe we can instill some sense of discipline in you before that. We’ll have to freeze you, too. But not before you take my boy to Maine. It’s important that you take him there. You may have malfunctioned, but you’re still the only one I’d trust with my own flesh and blood.”

The Soldier’s fists were shaking at his side, the only display of emotion he would allow himself. The only emotion he felt. Barely suppressed rage laced with fear. They were going to wipe him, make him forget about everything he’d shared with Steve the night before. They’d freeze him and take him God knows where. He might never see Steve again and all because of Kreuzer and his assassination attempt. That was what it had been, but no one was listening to the Soldier because he was not to be trusted, had had to be salvaged from the wicked creature that was Bucky Barnes. If the Soldier had never been that man, they might have listened, they might have not taken everything from him all over again. But he had been that man and he’d never be a real person for that reason.

“Permission to speak?” he managed, his vocal cords feeling like razorblades in his throat.

“Denied.”

The word hung in the air between them, so innocent and mundane, but it was anything but. The Soldier was robbed of his last defense. He wasn’t even allowed to grovel and beg for mercy. There was nothing he could do now, nothing, nothing, nothing.

“It’s for the best, boy. You’ll feel better after this. I promise.”

They had promised him a lot of things, hadn’t they? They’d promised that he was going to be important and cherished for all the murders he committed, the sins he unleashed upon the world in order to rub out humanity’s failings. But it hadn’t become true. None of it. There was no end to it, no new world order or harmony. It was only ever going to end with more wipes, more freezing and more missions until the entire world was awash in the blood of the Soldier’s victims. And red would be the only colour the Soldier would be able to see. It would be dripping, flowing, gushing from cuts and burns and torn limbs. And the Soldier would never be allowed to stop, not as long as he still lived.

Fixing his eyes on his boots, he vowed not to let this happen. He would not give them that. They had been lying. Well, so could he.

He would have gladly ended his life right then and there. They’d taken his rifle, but the Soldier knew how to kill himself without any weapon, had even been trained to do so by HYDRA herself. But Steve was still somewhere in these hallways, a shining beacon in the bowels of a beast. He could not leave without him, could not kill himself and leave Steve stranded here.

“Sir? What will happen to my-“ He could not say the word. He would not call Steve a pet.

“Oh, we’ll make sure he’s properly dealt with. STRIKE requested they be given him for a little fun, but I denied that. We’re not rapists and it’s bad enough you’re queer. I don’t need the rest of my team batting for the other team, so to speak. No, I’ll think of what to do him, but I don’t think you should have him again. You never malfunctioned before. Perhaps keeping you sexually frustrated was the key to your good work. Let’s wait and see, shall we?”

-

The Soldier didn’t struggle when they led him to the lab to wipe him. He let them put the electrodes on his head, opened his mouth when they shoved the plastic rod between his lips to keep him from biting off his own tongue. He knew that struggling wouldn’t have helped. Even now, when everything was falling to pieces, when his brain was in overdrive, battling both HYDRA and himself, he couldn’t quite overcome the need to serve and prove himself to be good rather than wicked.

“It’s gonna be over soon,” the nurse, a pretty blonde, said. “You know you need to keep as still as possible. It’ll hurt less than.” She readjusted the IV needle in the crook of his elbow a little. “Those are painkillers. It’s still going to hurt, but it might be a little more bearable that way.”

“You don’t need to coddle him, Michaela. He’s not a lost little puppy.” The doctor started fumbling with his machines and then it started.

Michaela’s lips, brushing the shell of his ear where it was the most sensitive. Oh, Steve had touched him there. But then he forgot Steve, at least for a little while, because the abyss was opening, swallowing him into its bright, bruising womb.

White-hot light in his brain, cracking his skull open for everyone to look in the darkest recesses of his brain. Eyes, eyes, eyes. The eyes were everywhere, looking, judging, waiting for him to take another wrong step. He was wrong, the eyes said. Everything about him had been measured and weighed and tested and found wanting. He was just a weapon, too worthless for anything else. Too useless to do even the most basic of thinking. Let a smarter person think for him. Let someone else take over and the pain might end.

Pierce’s eyes were staring at him and Pierce’s hands were reaching for him, but the Soldier did not want them. Those hands had stroked their lies into his skin, making them seep into the very marrow of his bone, until there was nothing but lies and his skin turned green with them. The flesh melted from his bones with those lies, turning him into a writhing, quivering nerve. They kept stabbing him, stabbing with the Spear of Longinus, with the sharp tentacles of HYDRA. Kept poking and tearing with their rows and rows of shiny teeth until he begged for deliverance.

And the Soldier was falling, always falling like in his worst nightmares. There was a hand somewhere in the darkness, a pale, small hand, too fragile to hold him upright, to pull him back. A sliver of blue eye. Rain, rain in the dark. But the rain burned his skin right down to the bone, showing them everything, everything, everything.

_No place to hide._

A voice. A cruel voice made of blinding light. The Soldier lifted his head, stared the light right in its acid eyes. His lips curled in a defiant smile and he pulled himself up to his full height, free of the shackles of servitude and HYDRA (a rotten bitch with worms crawling out of her fetid cunt, giving birth to nothing but monsters).

He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t useless. He was-

“I’m James Buchanan Barnes, you motherfucker. Get the fuck out of my brain.”

He grabbed the ghostly angel-hand, pulling Steve against his side, wrapped himself in his light, in his gentleness. He was right, good and pissed off.

“You’d better find a place to hide, HYDRA. Because I’m coming for you.”

And then he howled his joy, feral and terrible, at the night until the lights all fled like terrified beasts in the wake of his wrath.


	7. Chapter 7

“I don’t wanna go with him, daddy.” Alexander Pierce was an adorable-looking boy with strawberry-blond hair and wide blue eyes. He was also the most annoying brat this side of the Mason-Dixie line, Bucky thought.

 _Bucky thought_.

Thinking of himself in terms of being an actual person with a name still felt foreign. Perhaps it had shown in his expression when he’d woken from the wiping because Michaela had pressed a finger to her red lips, shaking her head slightly. He’d better not speak about it, but he really hadn’t needed that particular reminder. He knew that talking about this would have been the fastest way to see himself executed. Him and Steve. Steve was the only reason he hadn’t gunned every single one of these bastards yet.

His plan required a little more finesse than that, but he was getting there, getting pretty damn close. Standing on the Pierces’ front lawn with Alexander glaring at him was one step closer. He carefully kept his expression neutral, not giving anything away. It was a constant struggle because his muscles, unused for years, wanted to finally do their job, wanted to make him snarl, spit, _hate_.

“What’s wrong with the Asset taking you to school?” Pierce asked his son, not sounding particularly worried about Alexander’s wishes.

“He’s creepy. The other kids are gonna think I’m a loser if I turn up with him. I don’t need a stupid nanny.”

“Language.”

“I don’t need a nanny,” Alexander corrected himself, sounding sullen.

Clearly the Soldier wasn’t the only one whose wishes HYDRA had no intention of respecting. But Bucky wasn’t going to shed a single tear for the kid. Alexander was instrumental to his plan and he couldn’t afford any distractions or pity.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Pierce said. “With the Fist of HYDRA by your side the other children will learn to respect you. Even fear you. You see, fear generally serves as a much better incentive than rewards or praise. The Asset can tell you all about that if you ask him really nicely.”

Alexander looked doubtful, but he finally pointed to his suitcase and gestured at Bucky. “Take that to the car. Mr Rumlow is waiting for us already.”

They got into the back of the van and strapped in. Pierce didn’t come to say goodbye to his son or press a kiss into his strawberry hair. Bucky would have done that if it had been his kid, but Pierce was one cold son of a bitch. He didn’t even stick around long enough to watch the van pull away from the curb. He walked straight back into his house, the kid probably forgotten as soon as the door closed behind him.

Alexander knuckled his eyes and looked away.

Fuck.

“It’s fine, kid.” This was more Bucky than the Soldier, but if he was going to be the better man, he’d have to act like he actually was. He couldn’t very well let a child cry, could he? Even if said child featured heavily in his plans for blasting HYDRA to hell, he wasn’t about to traumatise him for life. It wouldn’t matter to Pierce in any way and Bucky just wasn’t that kind of person. Not now that he had himself back.

“What would you know about?” Alexander sniffed. “I bet your parents actually care that you’re here.”

“They don’t know. They think I’m dead.”

Alexander shrugged. “At least they won’t be sad then. When they kill you. They’re gonna, right?”

Bucky was sure that one day, one distant day in a future he couldn’t even imagine having at this point, HYDRA was going to put him down. Only, he would no longer be in their possession in the future, not anymore.

He was gonna fight the future.

“Maybe,” he said at last. “But you’re a bit too young to be thinking about all that.”

Alexander shrugged, the fine fabric of his sailor suit rippling across his narrow shoulders. The boy couldn’t be more than six, Bucky thought, but he was already prim and proper HYDRA material right down to his bones, casually discussing an execution with the subject of said execution.

“You have to be prepared for everything,” Alexander said. “’S what daddy always says. He says a lot of things. Told me about your friend.”

A cruel smile played around the boy’s lips. The little son of a bitch knew exactly what he was doing and Bucky was falling for it because he had to, because he couldn’t not think about Steve. His metallic fingers curled into a fist at his side, clenching and unclenching rapidly. The boy didn’t notice; he was too lost in his game of manipulation. He had learned from the very best, after all.

“You wanna know what daddy told me, don’t you? I could tell you, I suppose. If you ask real nicely.”

“Please tell me.” It was a snarl, barely suppressed rage, but he wasn’t above begging a child at this point. “What are they gonna do to him?”

Before Alexander could reply, the door to the driver’s cab opened and Kreuzer stepped forward. Bruises formed a tight ring around his neck, but he was smiling and mock-saluting Bucky.

“Hey there, pal.”

Bucky had never actually been glad to see Kreuzer before, but he could have hugged the crazy German right then and there. If Kreuzer was here, Rumlow wasn’t. And that meant that he hadn’t been wrong about the attempt on the Pierces’ lives and he still had a chance to get out of all of this.

“Kreuzer.”

And suddenly he remembered. Michaela. The nurse’s name had been Michaela.

He got up and walked towards the man, torn between the need to hug him and crush his windpipe again. Kreuzer didn’t even flinch, merely patted Bucky’s arm before sitting down again. “I’m still a bit shaky, you know? You got me pretty damn good. But we’re about to take HYDRA down, ya know? So that’s keeping me on my feet all right.”

Alexander gasped and opened his mouth to speak, but Kreuzer raised his hand. “You shut up, kid. Anyway, do you finally see it? Do you see what we were trying to do?”

Bucky wasn’t sure he saw any rhyme or reason to anything these days, but there was something fluttering in his stomach, rising from the depths of his mind. Kreuzer hadn’t come with him when he’d tortured Mrs Ermentrout. A handler was supposed to be with him at all times, but Kreuzer had claimed he was too nervous. Which was ridiculous. Kreuzer had watched him do a lot worse before. So it might be because it had been hitting too close to home.

“Ermentrout,” he rasped. “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”

Kreuzer nodded. “Smart boy. I knew I could depend on you to figure it out, pal. Now, Ermentrout wants a world without HYDRA in it. Wanted to free you. Of course they wouldn’t let him so… his wife volunteered for what you did to her. We figured that those in HYDRA who were still undecided about whether to support Pierce or Ermentrout would probably be swayed more easily if you did something to his pretty wife rather than himself.”

Bucky looked away, his eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. So even this, this despicable thing they had made him do had served a higher purpose. He’d had to cut open a woman so he might be free. Without even knowing so. Without even being asked for his opinion or his permission to be used in such a way. Ermentrout and Pierce, they were the same really. They might have been touting different ideologies, but the end result would always be the same.

“So what’s the plan now?” he asked because he wasn’t going to share his misgivings with Kreuzer and he wasn’t going to wallow in his misery any more than he already had as the Soldier. “And what happens with Steve? You said you knew.”

“Pierce’s plan was to coddle you and keep you under control by holding your, um, missus. But you got his son now. You’re holding all the cards, James.”

The name sounded strange, coming from Kreuzer’s lips, but Bucky nodded. If he had to make a pact with the devil, so be it. He wanted Steve back and then they were going to leave this blasted city and never come back.

“What will they do to Steve if I don’t use Pierce’s kid against him?”

Kreuzer shrugged. “He’s not doing what Pierce wanted. He’s not making you calmer. He’s dispensable.”

Bucky shuddered at the casual way Kreuzer said it. Maybe Kreuzer was better than most of them, but he didn’t doubt that his handler would throw him under the bus if it served his purposes. That was the HYDRA way of doing things and Bucky had learned that lesson very well. But his plan had been mostly identical to Kreuzer’s; use the kid to get back Steve and then… well, that’s where their plans might start diverging.

“How do we do this?”

“I thought you’d never ask. You call Pierce. They’ll be bringing your buddy from HQ, which gives us a bit of an advantage. We’ll know the lay of the land and we’ll see them coming. They’re gonna try to fuck with us during the exchange, but it’s gonna work out. We can pull this off as long as you remember your training. They didn’t fry that away, right? Just the conditioning. I told Michaela to be careful with you.”

“She was. You never told me your wife was a nurse, though.” Bucky raised an eyebrow at Kreuzer.

“She isn’t.” Kreuzer laughed, shaking his head. “You know, pal, once this is over, I’d like to take you out for a… fucking barrel of beer and then we’ll talk, okay? But right now we gotta pull this off and hope they’re not gonna kill us.”

“They won’t. I still got the training I need to take them out. Or at least as many of them as possible.”

He looked down at Alexander for the first time and he saw something in the boy’s eyes he recognised all too well.

 _Fear_.

-

Pierce didn’t sound particularly excited when Bucky made his calm statements, almost like he had been expecting it to happen all along, had only been wondering why it had taken such a long time for Bucky to finally tell him about it.

“Of course you want Mr Rogers back, which is great, because he’s missing you, too. I asked Rumlow to comfort him.”

Bucky’s knuckled went bone-white around the phone, but he forced the emotion down, forced himself to become the Soldier one last time. The Soldier would have panicked, but he would’ve kept it all together until his mission was finished. The Soldier wouldn’t have failed and neither was he, if he could help it.

“Just meet us at the coordinates I gave you.” With that he hung up, knowing that he’d put both Alexander’s and Steve’s fates in the hands of a man who was neither paternal nor sentimental. Pierce would act, of that he was sure, but it wouldn’t be to save his son. It would be to save his face.

The gas station’s owner, an elderly man with an unloaded shotgun, had decided to leave work early for the day and there was no one here now but them. Kreuzer leaned against one of the pumps, looking rather small and fragile in that moment. Bucky was sure he’d been taller back when Bucky himself had still been the Soldier.

“I might never see my wife again,” Kreuzer said. “Which is funny because my wife is the reason why I got involved with HYDRA in the first place.”

Bucky sat on the small bench the old man had vacated earlier and started polishing his own rifle. “She didn’t strike me as a very good supporter of the cause.”

Kreuzer chuckled. “Well, she’s not. You know, I wanted nothing to do with HYDRA. I knew they existed because I was an agent during the war, but I wasn’t really important enough to be trusted with all the details. They caught me in ’43. I spent the rest of the war here in the States. It wasn’t so bad, but Michaela was still back in Germany, you see. On her parents’ farm in the East. She had to run with our baby, but she wasn’t fast enough.”

Bucky kept perfectly still, not sure he wanted to hear this particular story. Hating people was so much easier when they wore the mask of HYDRA, not when they became real. He didn’t want to know about Michaela Kreuzer’s tragedy, but he wasn’t going to interrupt her husband either, not when this was the man’s last confession before his very possible death.

“The baby starved. We called him Michel, you know? Probably because we’re both narcissists with a really bad sense of humour. Michaela couldn’t move after that. That’s how the Soviets found her and, well… she couldn’t have any more kids after they were done with her. She wanted more. Had all those ideas for names. Michelle, Miguel… you name it, she’s thought about it. And then I met Zola and he said he could make her right again, could make her have her own babies. And when you find your wife lying in the bath tub with her wrists slit, you think twice about turning down such an offer, you know?”

Bucky wanted to tell Kreuzer not to light a cigarette right next to the gas pump, but then decided against it. Smoking next to highly inflammable substances was not the worst danger they were in right now.

“Your people thought they were so much better than everyone else. Turns out you weren’t, right?”

Kreuzer shrugged. “I never thought that. I just went along with what everyone else was doing. That’s my sin and that’s why I’m going to make damn sure it never happens again. It’s too late for me to save my soul, but I can save others. So I will.”

Bucky let out a bark of a bitter laugh and reached for Kreuzer’s cigarette. The German idiot let him have it, shook another from his package. “You know, if you’re thinking you’re gonna save mine, you’re wrong. It’s beyond saving. Has been since before HYDRA.”

Kreuzer shrugged. “Men like us can’t be saved. But the ones we love might be.”

They watched the smoke from their cigarettes curling up into the dull morning air. They were like Bonnie and Clyde now, waiting for the hail of bullets that would end their lives. Oddly enough, Bucky couldn’t think of anyone he would have rather faced death with.


	8. Chapter 8

Alexander glared at them when they got him out of the van, but the kid’s wishes weren’t of any particular importance right then and there because they could see a black van in the distance. They’d heard it long before they’d actually seen it, the tunes of HYDRA FM cutting through the silent country air like HYDRA cut through everything it ever touched. It was the song he’d danced to with Steve. The memory made Bucky’s lips curl in a bit of a smile. He was going to see Steve again soon, even if it might only be for a short while. It’d still be worth it.

“So, just making sure we’re both still on the same page, we’re gonna do the exchange, shoot at them and somehow try to hightail it outta here?” Kreuzer asked. Pearls of sweat were glittering on his forehead and a fresh cigarette hung between his lips. Perhaps he should have taken off the caramel coat if he was going to sweat all over the place, but Bucky wasn’t about to suggest any sudden movements when their target was so close. Kreuzer turned on him, shaking his head. “That’s what four years of HYDRA training has taught you. They’ve spent billions on you and _that’s_ the best you can do?”

“We’re going up against HYDRA now, not with it. We don’t have access to… pretty much anything. We can’t make this highly tactical anyway. They’ve trained me. They know what I know. It’s gotta be something they don’t expect. And they won’t expect me to be sloppy.”

“I didn’t expect you to be sloppy either! Miserable as it is, I rather like my life. I mean, yeah, I didn’t really want to become Ermentrout’s bitch, but it beats being Pierce’s bitch. Ideally I wouldn’t be anyone’s bitch, but beggars can’t be choosers and-“

“Shut up, Kreuzer.” Bucky rubbed his temples, trying to find that balance between lust for battle and cool, analytical thinking that the Soldier had excelled at. But all he could think of was Steve right then and there and he couldn’t afford to think this way. Making even a single mistake might kill all of them.

“My daddy’s gonna shoot you all dead,” Alexander said, glaring up at Kreuzer.

“That’s not helpful, kid.” Kreuzer sighed. “But you’re probably not wrong. Anyway, nice knowing you, James.”

Kreuzer held out his hand over Alexander’s head. Bucky eyed it for a moment, unsure whether he was meant to shake it. But that was just the Soldier thinking. Of course he was going to do this. Kreuzer’s fingers were cold and sweaty, but his grip was firm. Alexander eyed them suspiciously from where he stood just under their joined fingers.

“It was an honour.”

Alexander looked down and Bucky _knew_ what the kid was going to do a split second before it happened. But by then it was already too late. It had been late all along because of course HYDRA would train even little boys in the art of war. Of course this mission had been doomed right from the start because neither of them was going to take the shot. Even if killing Alexander had actually helped them in any way, shape or form, neither of them would have killed a child. Perhaps Alexander had sensed that or perhaps he had just decided that running towards his uncaring father was still better than staying with two crazy agents who were willing to lay down their lives for nothing.

The van came to a stop maybe ten yards down the road. The door slid open and Rumlow, sporting a shiner and a bloody nose, pulled the boy in. Bucky raised an eyebrow at Kreuzer, even as the panic started setting in.

“I wasn’t supposed to be on your van. Had to make it happen somehow.” Kreuzer shrugged.

And then it stopped mattering how Kreuzer had managed to beat up Rumlow, everything stopped mattering because Pierce shoved Steve out of the van and Bucky wanted to kill him, wanted to kill Pierce more than he’d ever wanted to do anything. Steve looked like he was keeping himself upright only because Pierce had his fingers fisted in Steve’s soft blond hair.

“You thought you could kidnap my son? My _son_? Haven’t you understood your place in the world yet, _Soldier_?” he spat, sounding like a snake about to devour its prey.

Bucky stepped forward, dropping his weapon. He knew with sudden clarity that he had been careening towards this moment in time, that every single step he’d taken had been only to this end. There was never an end to the line, no version of this game in which he was going to come out on top. It was too late for him, had been too late right from the start.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he murmured at Kreuzer. “Take Michaela and go.”

“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m just gonna leave now.” Kreuzer raised his gun slowly. “I’m gonna go out in a blaze of glory, pal, and I’m gonna take some of these bastards with me.”

He ran forward, a flash of crazy copper hair and bravado. Bullets tore through his soft caramel coat, the one Bucky had always wanted to touch. For a moment Bucky was unable to see in colour, like his brain was refusing to comprehend the carnage, refusing to put it into pictures. All he saw was Kreuzer’s silhouette against the grey autumn sky, small and fragile and broken, whipped back by the sheer force of the bullets tearing through him. But he kept running, kept shooting until he was halfway to the van. It was Rumlow’s bullet that finally stopped him. Kreuzer’s knees buckled under him and he dropped down. For a moment he was kneeling there, staring down at his ruined body like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“H-hail freedom, you sons of bitches.” He struggled to raise his hand, trying to shoot Pierce even now.

Pierce kicked the gun from Kreuzer’s blood-smeared fingers, kicked him in the chest and then stepped on his face, grinding his heel into the young man’s face until Steve screamed. He’d been completely silent until now, his expression almost indifferent to the violence around him, but now he rushed forward. His small fingers fisted Pierce’s suit jacket, yanking him back. Steve had always been spectacularly bad at choosing his opponents for a fight, Bucky thought.

“The man is dying. Let him do it in peace, for Christ’s sake. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Pierce seemed startled by Steve’s sudden action and actually did step back. Kneeling beside Kreuzer, Steve gently cupped the man’s cheek – or what was left of it anyway.

It was too late.

“Ermentrout is dead,” Pierce spat, his voice carrying far enough so Bucky could hear it. “You have a choice now, boy, and I’m only giving it to you because I happen to be fond of your pretty face. You can come with us, be wiped six ways from Sunday and continue to be our Asset. Or you and your pretty little bitch can die with Kreuzer. Your choice.”

“What happens to Steve if I come with you?”

“We’ll wipe him and send him back home. You’ll agree with me that you’ve forfeited the right to a pet at this point.”

Pierce didn’t know. He didn’t understand that he was no longer the Soldier. He thought Bucky was only acting out, that he wasn’t really back in his own skin. Oh, but that was a tragic mistake. Bucky knew exactly who he was and what he was. If Steve hadn’t been-

But he was.

Bucky couldn’t make this decision without taking Steve into account. Steve was the beginning and the end of every decision he was going to make from here on until whatever the end of their particular line was.

He had fought the future. Kreuzer had fought the future and it had only ended up with Kreuzer’s skull smashed, with his bleeding out on some backwater road in the middle of nowhere. There had been no glory or honour in the way he had been made to die. No matter how valiant, his actions had been suicide, had been suicide all along. Bucky hadn’t saved him and he wasn’t going to save Steve if he kept fighting. It was easier to succumb and let them have him.

He nodded at last. “On one condition. I get one last night with Steve. As I am now. Then I’ll do whatever you want, for as long as you want me to. If you ask me to, I’ll lay down my life once I’ve stopped being of use to you. But you’re not going to harm Steve.”

Pierce whistled between his teeth and nodded. “I like you being assertive. I’ll have to talk to Zola about keeping you this way even after the wipe. But yes, you can fuck your pet one last time. That won’t hurt.”

“Language, daddy.” Alexander looked up at his father, less a trembling child than a wolf cub waiting for its mother to vomit up food and praise.

“Will you be a good boy and come over here?” Pierce said, ignoring his son’s scolding. “And leave your weapon on the ground where we can see it.”

Something inside of Bucky’s head clicked into place and he hurried to lower his gun to the ground, making sure that they could see him doing it, making sure that they’d see what a good boy he was. He might even have his scalp scratched if he did really well. Pierce might make sit him on his lap again and, if the Soldier was going to be extremely lucky, he was going to get a smile. Pierce would smile and the world would be right again. He wouldn’t have to fight anymore. Everything would work out just fine for him and-

Bucky suddenly felt sick.

Because he’d been wrong, been wrong about everything. The Soldier had never really left at all, had only been lying in wait for a chance to jump out and comply. The Soldier wanted so desperately to please and now he was going to get one last chance of pleasing everyone.

He caught Steve’s gaze at last and what he saw there made him shudder. Steve had never looked at him like this before, had never looked at him with anything other than affection and admiration. This was new and it was so terrible, the Soldier had to look away quickly.

_Disappointment._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have shed a tear for poor Kreuzer. :/


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve turned, kneeling at Bucky’s side, his face so close Bucky could feel his breath on his cheek. “No, not theirs. Mine. You’ve always been mine, Buck.”

“I had no other choice.”

They were back in Steve’s room, back to licking each other’s wounds and trying to make sense of a world that had changed once again. Bucky had tried his best to explain everything to Steve, what he understood of it anyway. Most of the science went over his head and Steve probably didn’t really get it either. He listened anyway, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them.

“So they hurt you,” Steve said, like this was the most important lesson to be taken from Bucky’s story. “They did something to your mind. You wouldn’t have… done any of that. Before.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, doll. I wouldn’t have done any of this _before the war_. It’s not just HYDRA, you see. It’s everything. Out there you have to kill or be killed. There’s not even time to think about it. You just act and if you blow someone’s face right off, you’re not sad or horrified or whatever. You’re just so fucking glad it was him and not you.” He paused for a second, needing to catch his breath. “I became a killer before I ever became theirs. That’s important.”

Steve turned, kneeling at Bucky’s side, his face so close Bucky could feel his breath on his cheek. “No, not theirs. Mine. You’ve always been mine, Buck.”

Breathing through his nose, Bucky tried not to let his fear show. If he allowed Steve this close again, it’d only hurt more if they had to part ways forever in the morning. But Steve’s breath was sweet and warm, the only source of warmth he’d had in so long. Kreuzer’s death was like a sick, icy lump in his stomach that just wouldn’t go away. Had he killed him? Should he have made him leave? Would Kreuzer even have left? What was going to happen to Michaela now? Bucky knew he would never get a reply and all he had was Steve and perhaps that was enough.

Part of him knew that there was still a lot more to say, a lot more to explain, but there was no time for that. There would never be enough time to tell Steve everything. He didn’t want to remember any of it anyway. All he wanted were his memories of Steve, perfect and absolute and flooded in sunlight in his mind.

“I remember,” Bucky whispered. “I remember you sitting in my lap, all needy and pretty and asking for more. Always more, baby doll, isn’t that right?”

Steve’s lips ghosted over Bucky’s neck, the tips of his fingers gently searching for Bucky’s belt. “Always more. Because it’s never enough. Buck, I’ve been waiting for so long. I thought you were dead. I thought I was alone in the world. And sometimes that just wasn’t something I was dealing with very well.” Steve swallowed and Bucky knew what he was going to say next.

“Don’t say it,” Bucky whispered, still unable to lift a finger to help Steve or touch him in any way. If Steve had let someone else take care of him, he didn’t want to know. There was no reason to ask for it and no reason to tell. What was done was done. “This is our last night on planet Earth, Stevie. Just be my stupid little punk and forget about all the rest.”

Steve nodded, his hair brushing against Bucky’s face in a whirlwind of his own fragrance and HYDRA soap.

When he knelt between Bucky’s legs, Bucky’s belt open, his pants already down to his knees, Steve looked up. His eyes were dark with blown pupils, his breath catching in his throat as he looked down at Bucky’s cock. He wasn’t fully hard yet, but he nodded at Steve anyway. “You go ahead, baby doll. You can have it.”

“I never had any doubts about that, jerk.”

There was no heat in Steve’s voice and the insult might as well have been a caress. Wrapping his small hand around Bucky’s cock, he started pumping him slowly. It had been so long since they’d had time for this, so long since Steve had begged him for this. But it wasn’t enough. In twelve hours Steve would be torn from his arms, whether he wanted it or not, and he’d never have this again. He had to push that thought aside, had to-

Steve’s mouth was warm and gentle around him, his tongue a soft counterpoint to Steve’s hand stroking him harder, more insistently now, wanting him to react, needing him to get hard, needing him to be so he could fuck Steve, so he could fuck all the cold and hurt and pain out of both of them. Bucky’s eyes rolled back as he fell back into the thin blankets on the cot. He spread his legs, frustrated when his own pants held him in place.

Steve bobbed his head forward then, taking him in deeper, letting his sweet warmth wash over him. His hand left Bucky’s cock, tickled and stroked and teased all the way down to his balls, lower than that. His body went rigid with anticipation, his thighs quivering with nervous energy. He wanted to thrust forward, yet stay perfectly still because he knew what was coming and oh God-

Steve must have remembered they had Vaseline, Bucky thought, and for one crazy moment the thought of Steve being so thoughtful made him want to tease him about that. Then one of Steve’s fingers slipped into him, opening him, laying him bare and he made a choked sound instead, somewhere between a moan and a plea.

Steve’s tongue flicked the head of his cock, distracting him from the initial shock, but Bucky _wanted_ the shock, wanted to feel it. He was inside of Steve and Steve was inside of him, stroking, teasing, massaging all of HYDRA’s poison out of him until there was just Steve filling him. A second finger joined the first, scissoring him open. Bucky bit his lip and he realised Steve had been watching him all along. He started to withdraw his fingers, started to leave Bucky and no, no, he didn’t care. Even if it had hurt (which it hadn’t), he just didn’t _care_.

“No, doll, keep going, keep going. I want it, please, Stevie. _Fuck_ me.”

Steve had never fucked him before, had always been content with spreading his legs for Bucky, and Bucky had never even considered doing this before. But he wanted it now, wanted Steve to fill him up so that nothing else could wedge its way inside of him, between them. And Steve finally let go of his cock, finally sat up so he could kiss Bucky’s lips. He understood, he got it because he always did, always knew just what Bucky needed.

His eyes were burning and before long the kiss started to taste of salt even as Steve kept pumping his fingers in and out of him. “I need you, Stevie. I need you so much.”

Steve shucked his pants without asking why, without needing any sort of explanation and a moment later he was pressing into Bucky, stretching him, opening him. And it was… it was unlike anything Bucky had ever felt before. It was fast and messy and not at all romantic or even particularly refined. Still, his thighs clamped down on Steve’s hips, his muscles clenched around his cock.

“Stevie. My sweet baby doll. I’m sorry.” He really was. He didn’t care if he sounded like a complete idiot. Didn’t care. He just needed more of this, needed it to go on forever.

Steve cupped Bucky’s face, still incapable of speech, but it was all there in his eyes.

_I’m giving you this. I’m giving you myself because there’s nothing else I can give you now. Keep it in you for as long as you can because you’ll never have it again._

Steve stopped moving after a while, still buried deep within Bucky’s body, and they just stared at each other, Bucky’s fingers resting on Steve’s hips, Steve’s fingers fisted in Bucky’s hair.

They didn’t speak again.

-

When James Buchanan Barnes died this time around, he was ready for it. He knew his brittle brain wouldn’t survive another onslaught of electrical current, wouldn’t be able to hold in all the good Stevie had poured into him the night before. There was only one image left now, only one thing he was going to focus on as he lay on the operating table, strapped down at his wrists and ankles. Only one image that mattered.

The doctors walking past him in their scrubs and lab coats were ghosts, ghastly images that had no place in Bucky’s head. He wouldn’t remember them. Their syringes and electrodes and plastic and cool professionalism didn’t matter.

It wasn’t the smell of antiseptics tickling his nostrils. It was Steve’s skin last night; sweat and sex and light.

Steve’s blond head tucked under his chin during their last minute together, Steve’s arms clinging so hard it almost hurt. “This is the end, my beautiful, this is the end.”

And then it was the end.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you guys, so I've been sitting on this chapter for about a week now. I couldn't quite figure out how best to go about this, so I decided to ignore it until I knew what to do. I want y'all to keep in mind that Bucky's an unreliable narrator at best. Don't take historical facts or chronological order at face value. It's not necessarily true, which you'll find out in this story's B-side. Yeah, um, think of 'The Turning of the Screw as the A-side. The B-side will arrive in due course. Just know for now that this is not the end - it's the beginning.

The Asset was the one who killed Michaela Kreuzer. She didn’t plead for mercy, only spread out her arms to give him a better shot. He took it.

He buried her with her husband, in some godforsaken field in the middle of nowhere. It was a cold winter morning and digging up the frozen soil was hard work. He didn’t mind because it was an order. Maybe he didn’t mind because of something else, too, but he wasn’t going to examine this something else. He was the Asset. Doing his job was good enough for him.

Finally they were resting side by side, Kreuzer’s face re-arranged, borders newly drawn; a wreck and a mistake. But Michaela was still beautiful, even now. The Asset felt like he should be saying something, a prayer or perhaps some sort of speech, but he didn’t.

Turning around, he walked back to the waiting van. His work was done and he needed to get the dirt out of his metal fingers.

-

The Asset travelled through time, frozen in one place, unfrozen somewhere else on the globe, and he never once became the Soldier anymore or whoever he had been before that. The Asset took part in the Korean War, shot presidents in spectacular fashion and redirected missiles to places they didn’t belong. All in all, the Asset did a very good job of creating chaos; for chaos was the predecessor of harmony and Mother HYDRA (good, just and kind) slowly started giving him back some of his former freedoms. More than that even. When Alexander Pierce took over for his father, he sat down with the Asset.

“You can do as you like between missions. As long as you don’t draw attention to yourself, that is. But with your long hippie hair that shouldn’t be much of an issue.” Pierce grinned.

The Asset just sat on his chair, the very same chair he’d always sat in when talking to the old Pierce, and looked at the man the snotty little boy who had bossed him around had become. Pierce would lead HYDRA to hitherto unknown glory.

“There’s a story in the newspaper,” the Asset said. “About someone named Captain America. He’s supposed to motivate the troops in Vietnam. Sometimes I think I’ve seen him before.”

Pierce steepled his fingers and shrugged. “He might be someone from your past, Asset. You know how all those wipes have messed up your memories a little. But it was for your own good. You wouldn’t want to know some of the things you’ve done. But we can only delete your short-term memory. Everything else should still be there. If you want to remember, you can.”

“I don’t think I want to,” the Asset said slowly, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth. “I think I’d rather just remember being useful to HYDRA.”

“That’s your prerogative.” Pierce leaned forward slightly. “Don’t worry about Captain America. He’s no danger to you anyway.”

The Asset didn’t ask how Pierce knew that because it wasn’t his place to ask and he had a feeling, somewhere deep down in his chest, that he didn’t want to know the man behind Captain America’s mask anyway.

-

The Asset returned to Brooklyn in the summer of 1969. Longhaired girls were kissing boys with even longer hair and the air smelled of pot and sex. The apartment building was still as shabby as it had ever been, like it was only standing upright out of habit. Mouldy autumn leaves and other debris had accumulated in the courtyard, squelching under the Asset’s heavy boots.

The Asset wasn’t sure why he was here at all. Sometimes he remembered living in this building, remembered touching someone within these walls and listening to his delighted gasps. But these memories he buried quickly, sent them down to a deep, dark place in his subconscious. That person was something the Soldier had wanted. The Asset didn’t want anything. He lived to serve and that was all.

Still, he wanted to see the place again, if only to congratulate himself on having become the Fist of HYDRA, a soldier who didn’t need to live in such a dump.

Rusty metal bit into the Asset’s bare palm. The fire escape ladder swayed under his weight, creaking ominously. Rising to a crouch, he rubbed his sweat-slick hands together. He’d been gone for twenty years, but this place had not changed at all.

He’d been here before, right in this place, had been touching the rusty metal before. Something had happened back then. He’d remembered something. But he didn’t want to remember it now. He had no use for old memories. Dwelling in the past would do him no good.

He was fighting for the future, after all.

-

The Asset spent most of the 90s frozen in Russia. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, there was no way of retrieving the Asset, Pierce later explained to him.

Alexander Pierce had become old. There were lines in his cheeks which the Asset remembered having been rosy and fresh once. Even the old armchairs had been removed from HQ, had been replaced with steel and chrome and glass and leather. Everything looked brand new and expensive. Even the Asset’s own uniform was different now. As was his arm. They had replaced it while he was waking from his long sleep. A terrible weapon given to the Asset. HYDRA took care of her own. But the Asset was still tired. He’d been dreaming and in his dreams he hadn’t been the Asset, hadn’t had a metal arm. He’d had two flesh ones, wrapped around a small waist. A head of blond hair had nuzzled against his chest, wanting his comfort, wanting his body, wanting his love.

“I’m sorry it took so long. You need to kill an engineer for us. One of the Spiders from the Red Room is guarding him. Can you do it?”

He could.

-

The Asset was tired down to his very bone.

Perhaps that was the reason why he’d fallen for the Spider’s tricks, why he’d allowed the man on the bridge to rip off his mask and show his face to the world for the first time in almost a century. The man on the bridge, the one they called Captain America, choked out one word and one word only.

_”Bucky._

The Asset didn’t remember Bucky or having ever been him. It was something the Soldier might have wanted to be, something he might have been himself, before, a long time before, so long ago that Bucky would have been ash and dust if it hadn’t been for HYDRA. He was lucky to still be alive. He didn’t need to remember anymore. There was the kindness of HYDRA and that was all that mattered.

He didn’t want to remember.

-

Wiped again.

-

He could have killed him. It would have been laughably easy to kill the man because he wasn’t even fighting back, had given up his shield for something as stupid and tactically irrelevant as friendship. That idiot, that stupid little jerk wasn’t fighting back, like he had every reason to trust the Asset, like the Asset wouldn’t hurt him just because his wide blue eyes were swollen shut and his lips bloody.

And then it didn’t matter anymore because they were falling.

Without thinking, the Asset reached for the man’s fingers, wrapped his body around him, shielding him because he no longer had a shield and Stevie needed protection, didn’t he? He’d always been so bad at picking opponents for a fight and he had to make sure that he got out of this one without breaking every single bone in his body.

Vertigo.

Free fall.

Yes, he remembered that. That had happened before. 

Pain.

Oh, it had hurt. It hurt now, when his back broke their long fall. Every single bone in his body should have snapped under the weight, under the force behind the fall, but it didn’t.

He’d been falling for so long. He wasn’t going to let the laws of physics stop him now.

-

“Steve, you fucking idiot.”

He was sitting on the river bank, looking down at the man beside him. Captain America. Steve, tiny and fragile Steve, had become Captain America. He was so big and heavy, he had had trouble fishing him out of the cold water. The man under his fingertips felt solid and powerful, like Steve had pulled on a suit of muscles and healthy flesh. With practiced ease he mapped the injuries Steve had suffered during their fight and fall. The bullet wounds were the worst, but he wasn’t going to bleed out from those; his tight uniform served as an excellent tourniquet. He wasn’t sure if that was the reason behind the uniform or if its designer had merely wanted to show off Steve’s muscles, but it served its purpose well either way. Muscles where before there had only been fragile bones, hollow and so easy to snap. Even his face was different, which was probably why he had been able to fight the memories for so long. This was no longer his Steve, not really.

Steve’s eyelashes (still too long for his own good) fluttered and the Asset looked up, making sure there were no enemies anywhere close. Reaching down, he traced the ends of one perfect line of lashes. Soft, softer than anything he’d felt in so long.

“Buck.”

The Asset felt the word more than he actually heard it, felt it reverberating through his very bones. He remembered this. He remembered a lot of things. Not everything because that was impossible at this point, but enough. Enough to know that he had to protect this, whatever this was, enough to make him call an ambulance. Enough for now.

-

He was free.

For the first time in his life, however long it had been (he couldn’t be sure at this point really; had he been born in 1917 or 1918?), he was free.

He wasn’t used to being free and he failed quite miserably at it. He stole what he needed, fed most of the food to alley cats who repaid him with their body heat at night, and drifted through day after day with no clear goal in mind. Even his body was his own now and feeding it and cleaning it became a chore he wasn’t sure he was up to. His muscles suffered from the lack of nutrients and he became lean and thin again, like he had been before HYDRA. Vanity was so far from his mind that he wouldn’t have minded at all if it hadn’t been for his metal arm. Designed to be held up by a powerful shoulder, it became a dead weight. Soon enough pharmacies all over the city started complaining about a man with a baseball cap and a metal arm stealing their morphine supplies.

He could have gone and found some HYDRA agents (cut off one head and two new ones will take its place; HYDRA was far from done). They could have restored him to his former glory and given him a new purpose in life. Fighting for HYDRA didn’t seem like such a bother anymore. It didn’t matter whose side he was on. As long as they didn’t wipe him anymore, he would be all right. 

He could have gone to the Avengers Tower. He could have left the country and gone to Mexico where it was always warm and he wouldn’t need to worry about freezing to death at night. But he didn’t.

He knew Steve was looking for him, but he wasn’t quite ready for that either. It would have been so easy to lose himself in Steve’s arms and scent and familiarity. But he wouldn’t have been himself there either. Right now he didn’t exist.

He wasn’t the Asset, the Soldier or Bucky Barnes (born in either 1917 or 1918 or 1942).

He existed and he was free. In time he might decide to go back to Steve, to rekindle whatever it was that they’d lost. But that was a decision for another day.

He was free.


End file.
